Miners rescued from caved in pit

May 29, 2009 News

Narrow escape: Michael Douglas at the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Two miners escaped certain death when a portion of land in the Potaro came crashing down, burying them for several minutes.
Luckily, another group of miners were around and swiftly dug them out and carried them to safety.
The two men, Leonard Chand, a one-legged amputee, and his colleague, Michael Douglas, are now being treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital, having been transferred there from the Madhia Medical Centre where they were rushed on Wednesday following the incident.
Both men are suffering from injuries to the upper body.

For Douglas, this was his third time lucky, having undergone two similar experiences as a miner.
Chand told this newspaper that it was raining on Wednesday afternoon and he and Douglas were grading gravel some 40 feet in a pit when the cave-in occurred.
His entire body was covered with mud for a little less than five minutes and he almost suffocated.
“My friend dig me out. Thankfully he dig me out,” Chand told this newspaper.
It was Douglas who shouted for help since he was covered up to his shoulder by the fallen earth.
He said that they were tracing a stringer (grain of gold) when a drizzle of rain started.
“A piece of the land stay just so and slide off. It catch he (Chand) fuss but a bigger part of the land fall pon me and tie off me whole spine,” Douglas recalled.

He said that the fallen earth folded his body into a stooping position.
“The waist mud de covering me head but that was no weight to talk about, I shake it off. I had a li’l breathing space and I call fuh help,” Douglas explained.
Douglas has been mining for gold for over 25 years and he said that he escaped death on two previous occasions in similar circumstances.
“This was close, real close. This was the worst of the times. I thanking de Father and me friends dat been around,” he said.
Douglas insists that he will still continue mining since he understands that the mishaps are all a part of the dangers of the job.