"Thomas Kozak was 18 years old on December 6, 1907, when the Monongah Mine exploded at 10:28 AM.

"Thomas Kozak was 18 years old on December 6, 1907, when the Monongah Mine exploded at 10:28 AM.

Thomas had been married for one year and his son was 6 months old. He kept the baby’s photo in his breast pocket behind a piece of oilcloth to keep the coal dust off. The explosion killed 362 men that day, the worst mine disaster in American history. Thomas was in a side tunnel with 15 other men when the roof dropped. The main air shaft was blocked. The timber holding up what was left of the ceiling was cracked and groaning. The foreman, Mr. Walter Finch, age 67, yelled, “If that beam goes, the air pocket goes and we all suffocate!”
Thomas looked at the beam, then at the photo of his son. He was 18. He was married. He was a father. He got under that beam. He put his back against it and his feet against the floor and he held. He told the men, “Dig.” For six hours Thomas held 900 pounds of broken timber and rock while the other 15 men used picks and their hands to dig through the collapse toward a connected tunnel. His legs shook. His spine felt like it was going to snap. Coal dust filled his lungs. But he kept thinking about his son. At 4:30 PM the men broke through. One by one they crawled out. Thomas was last. When they pulled him free, he couldn’t stand.
Thomas never walked again. The beam had crushed three vertebrae. He went home to his wife and son in a wagon. He lived 50 more years in a wheelchair. He worked from home repairing shoes to support his family. He and his wife had four more children after the accident. All five kids learned to walk by holding onto the wheels of his chair. Thomas Kozak died in 1957 at age 68.
At his funeral, the last survivor of those 15 men, by then 82 years old, stood up and said: “Thomas Kozak was 18 years old. He had a 6-month-old baby at home. He put his back under that beam for six hours so 15 of us could live. He gave us his legs. He was 18.” Thomas’s son, who was 6 months old in that photo, was 50 years old at the funeral. He sa "

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