Bad Ground: Inside the Beaconsfield Mine RescueBad Ground is the exclusive, authorised story of the 14-day entombment and rescue of Beaconsfield miners Brant Webb and Todd Russell and the fascinating aftermath. The blast and rock fall which occurred one kilometre underground on Anzac Day, 25 April 2006 killed their fellow worker, Larry Knight and left their shift manager in doubt they were also dead. Tony Wright's enthralling, often spine-chilling narrative begins with a masterfully rendered portrait of the small Tasmanian mining township in which the drama unfolded, a township that revealed to him its deepest secrets. Bad Ground reads like a psychological thriller as it follows the many intriguing and moving developments surrounding its central characters and their families, above ground and deep down below. |
Contents
| 4 | |
| 33 | |
DO YOU COPY LARRY? | 55 |
THREE MEN MISSING | 68 |
WISH UPON A STAR | 93 |
HAS HE GOT AIR? | 107 |
STRANGERS IN THE STREETS | 130 |
BROKEN ON THE ROCK | 143 |
THE COOL KID IN GRADE 12 | 189 |
VOICES FROM THE DEAD | 216 |
JUST ONE CHANCE | 229 |
THE ANGLE OF REPOSE | 242 |
HATSY TO THE RESCUE | 257 |
PICTURES FROM THE DARK | 281 |
BAD GROUND ABOVE AND BELOW | 304 |
EPILOGUEALL THAT PASSES | 337 |
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Bad Ground: Inside the Beaconsfield Mine Rescue Tony Wright,Todd Russell,Brant Webb No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
alive Anzac Day Australia basket Beaconsfield Beaconsfield gold Beauty Point beneath Bill Shorten blasting blokes body bogger bolts Brant and Todd Brant Webb Brett Chalmers cage called camera Carolyn Carolyn Russell centimetres Cheesman Cheesy collapsed Corey Verhey crib Dale Burgess Daniel Piscioneri dark decline drill drive earth explosives father felt Flanagan Foo Fighters football friends Geard going ground Hatswell head helmets hole journalists Kaye kilometres knew Larry Knight Larry's Launceston Lauren machine mates mesh metres Mick Borrill millimetres mine's miners mining needed never Nobby Noel operation paramedics Port Sorell raise bore rescue team rescuers Rex Johnson rock fall roof seismic shaft space steel surface Tamar River Tamar Valley Tasmania telehandler Todd and Brant Todd Russell Todd's told tonnes town trapped truck tube tunnel underground Vinnie voice wall wanted Weld Street
Popular passages
Page 18 - They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old : Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
Page 43 - The time to go there is when the machines are roaring and the air is black with coal dust, and when you can actually see what the miners have to do. At those times the place is like hell, or at any rate like my own mental picture of hell. Most of the things one imagines in hell are there — heat, noise, confusion, darkness, foul air, and, above all, unbearably cramped space. Everything except the fire, for there is no fire down there except the feeble beams of Davy lamps and electric torches which...
Page 109 - ... very big Mako shark, built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as a sword fish's and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome. He was built as a swordfish except for his huge jaws which were tight shut now as he swam fast, just under the surface with his high dorsal fin knifing through the water without wavering. Inside the closed double lip of his jaws all of his eight rows of teeth were...
Page 109 - He was a very big Mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as a sword fish's and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome. He was built as a sword fish except for his huge jaws...
Page 109 - Sometimes he lost the scent. But he would pick it up again, or have just a trace of it, and he swam fast and hard on the course. He was a very big Mako shark built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as a swordfish's and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome.
Page 163 - Newton made similar observations and summed them up in his third law of motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Page 84 - ... clothed in new suits, and ironed ; and it is curious to observe with what nonchalance some of these fellows will turn the jingling of their chains into music whereto they dance and sing. Two rows of sleeping-berths, one above the other, extend on each side of the between-decks of the convict-ship, each berth being six feet square, and calculated to hold four convicts, every one thus possessing eighteen inches space to sleep in...
Page 42 - At these times the place is like hell, or at any rate like my own mental picture of hell. Most of the things one imagines in hell are there— heat, noise, confusion, foul air, darkness, and, above all, unbearably cramped space.
Page 307 - Why is it, is it the strength of the seam, or the wealth of the seam, that you continue to send men in to work in such a dangerous environment?