Company that managed Westray misled anxious families awaiting news, pastor says

It's not the sound of the explosion at the Westray Mine in Plymouth, N.S., that keeps Rev. Glen Matheson up at night, 25 years later. Nor is it the memory of lifeless coal miners being pulled from the ground.

It's the smell.

Matheson said he just can't forget the stench of the coal dust that permeated the air after sparks ignited methane gas in an underground tunnel on May 9, 1992, killing 26 miners. 

That "metallic, rotten, awful taste" still lingers, he told the CBC's Information Morning.

As a firefighter, paramedic and pastor with the First Presbyterian Church in nearby New Glasgow, Matheson had two roles to play as the tragedy unfolded: preparing the morgue and supporting the families who were waiting for news about their loved ones.

Mixed messages

"We knew how many bodies were coming out, we had the names of those bodies," said Matheson, who will preside at a memorial service Tuesday evening at Westray Memorial Park in New Glasgow.

The way he remembers it, the private company that managed the mine — Curragh Resources Inc. — wasn't always up front about the status of the men underground. Some details provided to families were either old or inaccurate.

Curragh representatives would tell family members desperate for updates "we should know within the hour or two, we're almost there," Matheson recalled.

But he said it was already known that "it was a recovery mission, not a rescue."

The company "gave everybody the impression they're going to be bringing living miners out when already we knew they were dead," he said.

'Crooked and deceptive'

Curragh was charged with operating an unsafe mine and mine managers were charged with criminal negligence, but nothing ever came of the charges. 

A public inquiry concluded the Westray disaster was "a story of incompetence, of mismanagement, of bureaucratic bungling, of deceit, of ruthlessness, of cover-up, of apathy, of expediency, and of cynical indifference."

The chief executive of the company, Clifford Frame, refused to testify at the inquiry. 

You have to be "crooked and deceptive to manipulate people that way and tell a little bit of the truth for the wrong reasons," said Matheson.

Surprise reunion

On Tuesday, Matheson attended an early morning march to mark 25 years since the Westray tragedy. He said he was surprised to hear the familiar voice of a draegerman from New Brunswick who helped with the rescue.

The crew of five were responsible for bringing the last four bodies to the surface following the explosion, Matheson said, at which point he convened an impromptu church service for the small group dozens of metres below the surface.

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Matheson said he hadn't seen the rescue crew again until Tuesday's march. It was "awesome" to see them again, he said.