John Stuckert, who had been a miner for thirty-five years, was secretary of the Cherry local of the miners, and who was working in the third vein, says: "At half past two we got smoke in our working place right off the air course. My partner is an Italian and I hollered to him, 'What are those fellows burning up there, anyhow ?' So the smoke began to get thicker. He said in broken English, 'I guess we got to die like mules.' I paid but little attention. But after a while the smoke got thicker and I said, 'We better try and make the bottom and investigate what is going on.' We made toward the bottom, but we could not get on the bottom for smoke, the closer we got the stronger it was ; we were driven back. . . . We waited a few minutes. One man said, 'I can see light on the bottom.' I said, 'If there is light on the bottom, it is clear; let us go out.' We went to the bottom and some fellow hollered down from the top that there wouldn't be any more doing today and we had better try and get out.

I climbed up the escape to the second vein and there was a bunch climbed ahead of me and when arriving there I found fire and smoke. I tried to light my lamp and it would not burn. I waited four or five minutes in the smoke, then there was a bunch came up after me. When the next men came they did not know which way to go, not knowing the different roads and everything full of smoke. So one of them said to me, 'What do you think?' I said, 'You have to judge for yourselves, I don't know' and they attempted to climb up further; they rushed up the escape and I followed, two men behind me and a man in the lead and he hollered, 'For God's sake, get back quick.' I said, 'I am going to make for the old east runway,' where we go up in the evening.

We hadn't got to the end of what they call the bottom when we were running into mules and empty cars and we had to crawl by the cars to get by the trip and there was a turn made then to the left; then we ran into another mule with empty cars. We traveled around until we came to the bottom. The smoke was awful thick. We had two doors to go through. When we got to the first door it was hard to open. I fell when I got the door open. One man came up and fell over us. He picked himself up and helped me up. And I stood back and I had hold of my own partner and he pulled me up to the next door and we got the next door open and got on the bottom. The smoke was so heavy there that it was like a vise holding you around the chest and taking your breath away. The man ahead held up and said, 'No further, boys, we are going to die here,' and he was trying to pull me back. I said, 'No, friend, don't go back; I see only one chance for us to make the big bottom; if we can't make the big bottom we are lost.' He got away from me and all I remember is that he made a couple of steps back, but who he was or where he landed I don't know.

I stumbled across the bottom the best I could. I held myself up once by putting my hand on top of a railing which helped me a little. I heard mules coming and men hollering among the mules and I crawled along the right side till I got right close to the bottom, then I was completely done end fell. At last I got up again and crawled a little more and I just made the bottom and fell on the cage. I never lost my presence of mind until I reached the top. I walked home and everything was a blank to me. After recovering I went back to the shaft and there was a crowd around there, and the mine was closed."
(From STATE OF ILLINOIS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Report on The Cherry Mine Disaster, ILLINOIS STATE JOURNAL Co., STATE PRINTERS,1910)

Read Testimony from Albert Buckle, age 16