Word: spradlin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Pete Spradlin was four when his father was killed in a local mine at 27. Pete was taken in by his grandfather, whose skull was crushed in a cave-in when Pete was 13. Now, at 44, Spradlin works the same rolling seam of coal -- Chilton, it is called -- that his father and grandfather did. Each morning Spradlin enters the Bantam Mine, crouching to clear the sign that reads WORK SAFE AND ENJOY LIFE. But Spradlin has had his own close calls -- a gashed lip that took 16 stitches, a couple of cracked ribs, a broken finger, two teeth knocked...
...gentle and reflective man, Spradlin weighed the career risks before taking his place in the coalfields. Now, after two decades of inhaling coal dust, he tries to ignore a nagging cough but privately frets about black lung. Says his wife Ruby: "I think it's probably the most hazardous job a man could have. If he's late for dinner, I wonder what's happened...
...Spradlin operates a shuttle car, ferrying four tons of coal from the face of the mine to a conveyor belt. The monotony of the job is numbing. "It's like a yo-yo, all day, back and forth, all day," he says. Sometimes he is two miles within the mountain. Often he kneels in mud and water. He has worked in low- seam coal, a claustrophobic 29 inches from the mine floor to the roof. To eat his dinner, he has had to lie on his back. To relieve himself, he squats in one of the myriad byways. When...
...this, Spradlin draws a salary of $40,000. His home is bright and comfortable. But the price he pays is never forgotten. "If a man works in the mines until retirement -- if he lives -- it's going to knock a certain percentage off of his life, health-wise. You're making good money, but you're getting bad health doing it." Yet he counts himself among the lucky ones. He still...