At the Coalface: The memoir of a pit nurse. Veronica Clark

by now I was getting used to it.

      ‘I’m a nurse,’ I told one woman. She sniffed as I passed, blackened head to toe with coal dust. She shook her head as though she didn’t believe a word of it.

      The miner eventually returned to work. I’m not sure how bad the fracture was so I don’t know if they put him in traction or just plastered his leg, but he was off work for a good three or four months.

      A few weeks later, we received another call. A miner had suffered another leg injury, only this time it was a serious underground incident. The man had bored a hole in the coalface and had tried to fire it, using shot, which is candle-shaped and similar to a stick of dynamite. Normally it’d cause the roof to crack, loosening the coal and making it easier to extract. Only this time the shot had partially fired and ricocheted back towards the miner, who was crouched at what he thought was a safe distance away. The shot had then detonated fully next to his right leg, partially blowing the top part off above the knee.

      I immediately telephoned Dr Creed, one of the Coal Board doctors based at Doncaster. The disordered blast had caused coal to fall in on the patient, so he’d been trapped underground with his leg hanging on by a thread. That’s when the full impact hit me – Dr Creed and I would have to travel into the pit to carry out an emergency amputation to free the man. Feeling sick with nerves, I grabbed the amputation kit and checked it over. It was pretty basic, containing artery forceps, a tourniquet, sterile saw and several sharp knives of different lengths. I knew Dr Creed was on his way with morphine, so I changed out of my nurse’s outfit and pulled on my boiler suit and pit boots.

      ‘Good luck,’ Bert called as I headed towards the door.

      I nodded and left him in charge of the medical centre. By the time I’d reached the pit top, Dr Creed had pulled up in his car. I’d never been more relieved to see a doctor in my whole life. He’d already changed into his overalls, so we walked over towards the shaft side. Dr Creed was a lovely middle-aged man who was very experienced, but I could tell the thought of performing an amputation in the dirt, miles underground, concerned him too. Before we entered the cage, he turned to face me.

      ‘Are you nervous, Sister?’ he asked gently.

      I was absolutely terrified – my fear betrayed by my hands, which were trembling at my side. I grabbed the handle of the amputation kit for courage.

      ‘Yes, I’m frightened to death,’ I admitted.

      Dr Creed turned away and fumbled around inside his bag. Moments later he pulled something out – a silver hip flask. He unscrewed the top and held it out towards me.

      ‘Here, have a nip of this, Sister,’ he insisted, pushing the bottle into my hands. I looked up at him, wondering if it was a test.

       Surely drinking on the job wasn’t allowed?

      Then I thought of the poor man waiting for us, and the gruesome amputation. I grabbed the bottle and took a quick gulp. The brandy warmed my mouth and throat as I swallowed. I gave the hip flask back to Dr Creed, expecting him to replace the cap – only he didn’t. Instead, he held it aloft and took a quick swig too! He inhaled a huge breath of air, replaced the lid and turned to face me.

      ‘Better?’ he asked.

      ‘Better.’

      And I felt it. We were just about to step into the cage when Bert came running over to find us. He’d received a call to say the miner had been freed and rescued from the rubble. His leg was barely attached but the first-aid team underground had tied a tourniquet around his thigh and strapped his legs together to keep the damaged leg stable. When the injured miner – a man called John – was brought back up to the surface, Dr Creed administered a maximum dose of morphine, and John was loaded by stretcher into the pit ambulance. I travelled with him to hospital, where I handed him over to the doctors who’d been waiting for his arrival. With nothing else to do, I travelled home, both physically and emotionally spent. I felt helpless and began to sob. I’d been taken on to care for these men but I wasn’t God and I couldn’t perform miracles.

      ‘It was just so awful,’ I wept. Peter wrapped his arms around me and tried his best to comfort me. ‘I just felt so helpless.’

      I refused to shed a tear at work. Instead, I stored it all up inside so I could release it later at home where no one could see or hear me. I couldn’t let the men see me upset because I needed to be strong for them. I couldn’t let them see my tears because by now they trusted me to do the right thing, even when faced with a life-or-death situation. But the truth was that the responsibility often weighed me down.

      John was eventually stabilised, and later that evening the hospital surgeons amputated his right leg. He was still a little woozy when I called to visit him in hospital the following morning, but he was also very accepting in spite of losing a limb.

      ‘I’ll be honest wi’ yer, I’d rather it hadn’t happened, Sister, but at least I’m alive, so I’ve that to be grateful for,’ he reasoned. His bravery made me want to let go of my resolve and cry.

      It’d been a horrendous accident, made worse by the fact that John had initially been trapped underground, miles away from the nearest hospital. But that was the importance of my job. I was there to keep the men safe, and not only to try to help prevent accidents, but also to treat them accordingly should one occur. I was their first port of call, and together with Bert we had a responsibility to our men. There was such camaraderie among the miners that within 24 hours of John’s accident the afternoon shift had collected enough money for a state-of-the-art wheelchair. They’d collected even more to pay his wife’s wages so she could stay with him at his hospital bedside. I loved that about working at a pit – the miners were a family. The men looked out for one another in a way that most people would for their own blood. During my time as a pit nurse I became stronger because I realised I’d always have that same support too.

      The automation of the pits made the mines more productive than with a man armed with just a pick and shovel. The latest machinery brought with it fewer accidents, but more danger and risk of amputation. After John’s accident, I tended to men who’d had their fingers ripped off. At first, I found it difficult because the patients would be filthy from working underground when they came to see me – hardly perfect conditions when trying to keep infection at bay. I knew I always had Bert, and a Coal Board doctor was only a phone call away, but ultimately I had to learn to trust my judgement and make the right decision.

      At first I was over-cautious. If a man had a foreign object in his eye, I’d send him to hospital. Chest pains were another direct route and a ride in the pit ambulance to A&E. You could never tell if a pain in the chest was the start of a heart attack or something less sinister. I didn’t take any chances and packed them off all the same. However, there were a few miners who knew the system and tried to play me like a fiddle. Doncaster Rovers were playing a vital home game when I received a call an hour or so before kick-off, to say a man was being carried to the medical centre on a stretcher. He’d complained of severe stomach pains, and at first I’d been a little concerned. However, my father, who was the afternoon gaffer, knew the miner well. He also knew that he was an avid fan who became ill every time Rovers played at home.

      ‘Watch him, Joan. He’s trying to pull t’wool over yer eyes to get off work so he can go and watch t’game. He’s known for it – we all call him Sick Note.’

      Sure enough, I was presented with a man who had absolutely nothing wrong with him other than a burning desire to watch his home team.

      ‘Where does it hurt?’ I asked as I proceeded to examine his stomach. I placed my hands flat against it, feeling for tenseness. Patients with severe stomach pains, as he professed to have, automatically tense their muscles because the last thing they want is to be examined. His stomach was soft and relaxed. I smelt a rat. The more I examined him, the more the pain seemed to move around and change direction.

      ‘No, Nurse, it’s more over this side,’ he wailed dramatically.

      ‘That’s funny. I thought you said it was over there a minute ago.’

      The