THE BEACONSFIELD MINE HERO
DARREN FLANAGAN SAVED THE DAY WHEN TWO MEN WERE FOUND IN THE RUBBLE OF THE COLLAPSED MINE
When Todd Russell and Brant Webb were found alive six days after Tasmania’s Beaconsfield gold mine collapsed in April 2006, Australia breathed a sigh of relief.
Mining and explosives expert Darren Flanagan was as gripped by the news coverage as everyone else.
“I hadn’t thought they could be alive,” Darren, now 55, tells New Idea on the 15-year anniversary of one of the world’s greatest mine rescues.
“I was watching TV for updates, wondering how they could have survived, when the phone rang in the kitchen. It was Beaconsfield mine calling.
“They wanted to know if it was possible to blast a small tunnel towards the miners without killing them,” Darren remembers.
Since Darren was trained in explosives designed to be used safely in situations where conventional explosives would cause damage, he was the perfect man for the job.
“They said they wanted me there that night. I was completely freaked out. Nothing like this had ever been tried before.”
Fearing it would never work, Darren apprehensively boarded the private jet sent just for him.
“As I arrived my heart was thumping out of my chest. Two lives depended on what I was going to do with the whole world watching. What I was heading into was dangerous, but I wasn’t thinking about dying, just how I was going to pull this off,” Darren explains.
Darren recalls seeing a whiteboard with 20 other rescue options ahead of what he would need to do.
He was sent underground with a small team to practise, and every time he came up to report, options above his name had been crossed out until he was literally the last resort.
“It was so overwhelming,” Darren says.
“Todd and Brant’s families were there. The image of Todd’s 12-yearold son Trent sitting on a bench seat and swinging his legs waiting for news will never leave me.”
But that image was also the inspiration Darren needed for the gruelling nine-day task ahead. One miner, Larry Knight, had already passed away, killed by the initial rockfall, but the Beaconsfield mine managers were determined the other two wouldn’t face the same fate.
Todd and Brant were trapped 900 metres below ground, in a tiny work basket no bigger than 1.5 metressquared. They couldn’t stand or sit and were lying on their backs on broken rock for 14 days.
They survived on one muesli bar and groundwater for six days until thermalimaging cameras found them and a 16-metre long hole was bored into their underground cage, allowing for a phone, food and water to be passed in.
“The team needed to meticulously create a 16-metre long tunnel towards and then underneath them,” Darren says. “Every blast we got closer. We couldn’t make a mistake. There was one blast when I heard them screaming on the phone and I thought I’d killed them. That’s scarred me forever. Todd told me then that whatever happened
“EVERYONE CAME HOME A DIFFERENT PERSON AFTER WHAT THEY WENT THROUGH”
they wouldn’t blame me – they pleaded for me to continue with the blasting.
In fact, Todd and Brant would later thank Darren and everybody involved because after working 29 hours straight and 65 individual blasts, the tunnel was completed.
Darren waited outside as the jackhammer crew broke through the final 300mm of rock and set the two men free.
“I just cried – I was so relieved that they had survived,” Darren says, still emotional 15 years on.
For Darren, who was quickly championed as a hero for his involvement, his life was changed forever.
“Every person came home
different after the pure emotion of what they went through,” Darren says.
It took months for him to talk to his wife, Tracey, about it. “It made me a better dad and a better person. I became aware of trauma and mental health, and I saw how life can change so fast,” he says.
Darren shared his story publicly and is now chairing a Safework NSW group supporting families that have suffered loss through workplace accidents.
“It’s important for people who have been through such specific trauma to share with other people who have suffered the same,” Darren says.