Last man to emerge from mine disaster in Springhill, N.S., dies at 95

The last man to emerge from a shattered Nova Scotia mine 60 years ago has died. Herb Pepperdine was 95 years old when he died Friday in Springhill, N.S.

His obituary says Pepperdine mined coal all his life and spent eight days trapped in the Springhill mine after an underground convulsion on Oct. 23, 1958.

Pepperdine was among 174 men underground when the No. 2 mine operated by the Cumberland Railway and Coal Co. was jolted by a resounding boom, trapping them and killing 75. Scores died instantly.

In a 2008 interview, Pepperdine described crawling along the floor of the pitch-black mine in search of food and water, three days after the world learned of an unfolding tragedy at North America’s deepest coal mine.

“I was feeling around, looking for something,” he said, recalling his desperate bid for survival 50 years previously. “I could smell a chocolate bar in a lunch can.”

Hunger gnawing at his shrunken stomach, he could have eaten it there in the gloom. But the 35-year-old miner instead shared the sweet treasure with six other trapped men.

“I split it between us, best I could,” he said at the time. “That little bar of chocolate was good after three or four days with nothing.”

The violent shifting of strata rattled dishes and windows throughout Springhill. Some residents were knocked off their chairs as they watched “Don Messer’s Jubilee” on TV.

The seismic shrug was felt in Amherst, 25 kilometres away.

“We were standing there talking, and she bumped,” Pepperdine said. “It just knocked you out, the concussion . ... Just like someone fired a shotgun near your ear.”

Through swirling curtains of coal dust, Pepperdine eventually found six other men where the coal seam was precariously held open by a mangled roof support.