Safety Precautions in the Kennecot Copper Mine PART 5
The whole mood around the pit yesterday was solemn. Nobody talked, openly at least, about the man who killed himself, whom I’ll refer to from this point forward as John. The news of his suicide spread like wildfire among the community hours after it happened, but it didn’t make any news stories. In fact, it didn’t make anything at all. Even his daughter, whom is avid about Facebook and Twitter, was tight-lipped about it online. For all intents and purposes, there was no record of him having died at all as far as we could tell.
Work went about in a normal capacity, and someone had even taken up John’s job seamlessly. It was as if he’d never been there in the first place.
It was around lunch time that something changed.
Tim, the man who’d told me the story from my previous post, sat down across form me in the cafeteria. This, in itself, wasn’t that strange – we’d eaten lunch before, often with John and a handful of other people – but it was the conversation he struck almost immediately after sitting down.
His voice was hurried, shaken, and he spoke in a low tone that was almost a whisper.
“I’m going down there,” he said.
I didn’t reply. At first, I wasn’t honestly sure what it was he was talking about, but it dawned on me at the exact moment he continued to speak.
“I’m going down to the bottom of the pit. John used to work close to the bottom – he actually KNEW the guy that I told you about yesterday that went crazy – and he almost never talked about it. I got the impression he saw or heard something he shouldn’t and that he was honestly afraid of the things going on down the mine. If he killed himself, which I’m not convinced it was as plain as that, I think he did it because he was scared. He had a lot to live for, but whatever he knew was either too dangerous for him to stay alive, or too terrifying for him to want to continue living.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment after that, but instead let what he said hang in the air between us like the blade of a guillotine. Although I hadn’t said it outright to Tim, I believed we shared the same feeling that whomever was running the mine had more control over our lives than we cared for. If he crossed them, he would be vaporized from existence – and me along with him. Simply being a part of the conversation that was happening was enough, I think, to merit action by the upper echelons. The moment he sat down, hell, maybe even the moment we met in the Filling Station, our lives were already in danger.
I agreed to help him.
There was no point in waiting to carry out the plan that Tim had devised. Being that we were likely already on the radar, waiting even 24 hours could mean that one or both of us would go missing before carrying out the plan.
Tim’s plan was simple, really, and it started with me feigning a stomach ache. I was so nervous it wasn’t hard to force myself to throw up, and after making a mess all over the dirt, I was sent home by my supervisor.
I drove nearly home, just as Tim instructed, then double-backed up the highway and turned my radio to the channel I was told.
He’d been very specific on where I should wait to hear from him. It was a few miles down a dirt road in Herriman. I knew what he’d been planning to do, but I didn’t believe he’d actually do it until I saw the dust being kicked up on the other side of a hill.
One of the big Kennecott trucks – the kind that goes down to the bottom of the mine and drives through the tunnels – came up and over the hill with Tim in the driver’s seat. I sat in my truck, watching as he drove the truck past the road where I sat and up a small canyon.
In the years that he’d worked for the mine, he’d made some friends, as he put it, and those friends had managed to get him the keys to one of the trucks that he’d otherwise need special clearance to drive.
I heard his voice on the radio then, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“You there?”
I told him I was.
“Keep the channel open, and don’t use my name. I’m going to report to you what I see as I go down this tunnel. No matter what happens to me, I want you to share with everyone what I tell you. Understand?”
I told him I did.
The next forty-five minutes was completely silent. I sat and played games on my phone and listened to music, but I couldn’t help the knot forming in my stomach. I thought for a moment that perhaps I didn’t actually fake being sick. I was hot and feverish from the anxiety and my stomach bile felt like it was going to burn a hole right through me.
When the voice came over the radio again, I’d almost begun to give up hope that he’d made it.
“I’m in.”
From this point forward, as requested by Tim, I will transcribe everything that was said over the radio.
TIM: I’m in the tunnel now. They searched the truck and let me in. I passed two of those guard dogs they talk about on the signs in the lower tunnels. They’re big fuckers – I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of them.
I don’t think they’ve been mining these tunnels. There are huge veins of copper and gold that don’t look like they’ll ever be excavated. I think they’re working on getting deeper into the mountains.
SILENCE FOR SEVERAL MINUTES
TIM: I just saw a caution sign, sort of like the one in the pit, but this one is different. It says:
CAUTION
Gloves and protective masks must be worn from this point forward. Under no circumstances are you to remove them.
All fossils and artifacts must be reported immediately upon excavation.
Rio Tinto accepts no responsibility for any physical, mental, or emotional damage past this point.
SILENCE FOR SEVERAL MINUTES
TIM: I’m still in the truck and I’ve reached a big room. I’ve got a mask and gloves from the cab of the truck. I’m gonna get out and take a look here.
It looks sort of like a bomb shelter. There are these barrels that look like whiskey barrels all over the place. I think they’re Cedar maybe.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vein of copper this big. It’s like they dug the room out of the stuff. The walls and everything are almost all completely unrefined copper.
I can’t seem to open any of the barrels, but there’s something weird about them. I feel warm, but not on the outside.
SILENCE FOR APPROXIMATELY TEN MINUTES
TIM: Someone’s following me. I can hear them talking to me. They know my name.
SILENCE FOR SEVERAL MINUTES
TIM: I’m trying to come out now, but he won’t stop following me. He wants me to take off my helmet.
SILENCE
I’m going to take off my helmet.
ME: Don’t take off your helmet! I’m on my way.
SILENCE
Inaudible audio
Note: Tim began to speak in another voice here. I could hear his voice in it, but I do not believe that it was him speaking. I believe it was something or someone else speaking THROUGH him.
VOICE: Come unto me.
ME: What was that?
VOICE: Come unto me my child and partake of the manna of heaven. For with it, ye shall know everlasting life.
TIM: Crying I will. I will.
ME: Get out of there!
VOICE: Timothy. Look upon me and see.
TIM: Screaming.
VOICE: Do you believe in God?
RADIO STATIC.
SILENCE.
I haven’t seen or heard from Tim since then.
Posted Jul 21, 2017, 10:29 PM UTC