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00:00My road trip across every county of England has reached Nottinghamshire.
00:03I was into the former industrial heart of the East Midlands now,
00:06and while the coal mines may all have closed down, their legacy lives on.
00:10In the town of Mansfield Woodhouse, there's a company called MRS Training and Rescue,
00:15but that MRS speaks of a much older history, going back more than a century,
00:19to the Mines Rescue Service.
00:21And hidden underneath the unassuming brick building are the galleries,
00:25a basement that can simulate all sorts of mining disasters.
00:28A few minutes after arriving, I was already suiting up,
00:31because despite having no experience and very few relevant skills,
00:36I was going to join a training exercise.
00:40The escape plan has been implemented, so that we have one person missing.
00:45The briefing said that there'd been an explosion and collapse at an old mine,
00:49one where there's remediation work going on.
00:51High levels of carbon monoxide and a lot of unknowns,
00:53including the location of one missing person, Nathan.
00:56The blast may have resulted in further damage to the conditions that's down there,
01:02and as we already know, the roof is in bad state repairing places,
01:07so you will have to be very careful.
01:09This exercise was filmed as if it were real.
01:12We weren't stopping and starting to get retakes,
01:14there wasn't a director saying, can we do this again?
01:16It was me and my camera, and we were going for it.
01:20After the initial briefing, it was time to check our equipment.
01:22Charge your set with ice, okay?
01:24Right, okay, so front off, front off.
01:28Once you pop it back in, make sure the drain on your back cover is uppermost,
01:31to let the water move, the water come out.
01:33Out, out, towards you.
01:34So like this.
01:35That's it, straight in there, straight in there.
01:37That ice is to keep the air I'm breathing cool.
01:40We're using closed-circuit breathing apparatus called a BG-4.
01:43It's not like scuba gear, where you're just breathing from a tank.
01:46There is some oxygen being added, but mostly the exhaled air is going through a scrubber
01:51and a cooler to take the carbon dioxide out and make it safe to breathe again.
01:55Also, that's Liam there.
01:56He was basically my guardian angel that day.
01:59Not part of the exercise, but making sure that the amateur here doesn't get hurt.
02:03Make sure it's all secured.
02:06Check.
02:07Check, check.
02:09Check.
02:10Check, check.
02:11That's all right.
02:12You feeling happy?
02:13Yeah.
02:13Are we...
02:14No rush, no pressure, you're doing well.
02:16I was mostly looking at what the experienced people were doing with their breathing apparatus,
02:20their BA, and I was doing the same.
02:22I'm sure they knew all the checklists by heart,
02:25but they were still going through that checklist together, one item at a time.
02:29Because one of the things I learned here was you don't take anything for granted.
02:34Spin your set round.
02:35Now go to your hoses.
02:37Again, make sure all three anti-crush rings are in position, are present and correct.
02:42Start to extend your hoses, checking there's nothing missing, misplaced,
02:46broken or damaged, there's no splits.
02:47Some of those checks might seem a little odd out of context.
02:51Check your signaling device works.
02:53Yep.
02:55Check.
02:55Check.
02:56Check.
02:57Check.
02:57But if you're trapped in the pitch black noise all around you,
03:00you do not want to find out that the seemingly minor thing that you now need to work
03:05is actually broken.
03:06I did get quite a lot of help there, including with all the complicated things like reading the air
03:11pressure on the BA.
03:12So that is to check that there's no leaks in the system.
03:15Yep.
03:16To make sure there's no leaks in the system,
03:17and this part now is to check that the whistle function actually works as well.
03:20Right.
03:21So you'll see in a second, it gets to about 55,
03:24you'll see it starts flashing and also whistling as well,
03:26all making that noise.
03:28And that's if there's not enough pressure left.
03:29Exactly.
03:30Wow, that's loud.
03:32The prep took about ten minutes.
03:34Even in a real emergency, they would not be rushing those checks.
03:38Everybody all right?
03:40You're on oxygen now, you're on the closed circuit system.
03:43Okay.
03:44A scuba tank would last you half an hour, maybe an hour,
03:47it'll depend on how much oxygen you're using,
03:49and mine rescue is going to be using a lot.
03:51The rebreather set gets you anything up to four hours.
03:54It weighs 16 kilos, about 35 pounds, and it was...
03:59surprisingly comfortable, because it has to be.
04:01So, breathing gear on, medical bag and supplies with one of the team,
04:05although they're all qualified first aiders anyway,
04:06down into the basement mine.
04:08Captain for the exercise is Derek, who's got a lot of experience with this.
04:13When you do get a call, and it does happen, and it's usually,
04:16the minute you do not expect it, you've got the police, coal authority,
04:20or somebody else, mining remediation authorities they are now,
04:23bringing us into a situation, it could be anywhere in this country.
04:26There's over 270,000 abandoned mine entries in the UK alone,
04:31so we can be, and we are, anywhere in the country.
04:34Later on, Derek showed me the inside of one of the emergency vans.
04:37MRS has contracts with industry around the country,
04:40not just mines, but anywhere there's confined spaces.
04:43And if the alarm goes off, the team that's on call will drop everything,
04:46get to the van, and go out to save lives.
04:49The former Mines Rescue Service might be a private company these days,
04:53but one of their jobs is still emergency response.
04:55MRS 31 years underground. I've wore close-circuit breathing apparatus.
04:59The one before you wore today, Drago BG4, for 28 years.
05:04So, yeah, 28 years. I came down here as a seven-year-old kid with my dad.
05:07My mine, my dad was a miner, a mines rescue guy, and I just followed my dad into mining.
05:13And 31 years later, I became, you know, underground worker,
05:16coal-faced supervisor, a production overman, it's quite a high-end job.
05:20But I was sort of, I became into the world of part-time rescue regainsmen in the mid-90s.
05:27So, yeah, seemed like a lifetime, but been a blast.
05:31We're going to split the narrative. Now, after the exercise was done,
05:34Derek and I headed down into the galleries again, with the lights on,
05:37to talk about what I'd been through.
05:39So, you're going to see the whole exercise from two very different perspectives now.
05:42The exercise itself, chaotic, dark, confusing, more or less what I saw.
05:47And then, walking through what seems, with the lights on,
05:50to be just a regular basement.
05:52And I promise you, in that smoke-filled darkness, it did not feel like that.
05:57We lined up at the FAB, the Fresh Air Base, me at the back,
06:00Derek checked for heat sources behind the door, and in we went.
06:03Now, if I had up-to-date working-at-height training,
06:05we might have descended down a tight vertical access shaft,
06:08or even from scaffolding, at height, down into that shaft.
06:12But, as it was, we started by taking the easy route in.
06:15So once we go past this point, what we've got?
06:18We've got the smoke.
06:19That's a bit different, isn't it?
06:20It certainly is, yeah.
06:23So we came along here as a team.
06:28Where we travelled, we came up here.
06:30Did we?
06:31Yeah, you came to see me.
06:32If we can get through there, mate, check the saddle kit.
06:39It's impossible?
06:40Come back to me, mate.
06:42Well done, well done.
06:43Good stuff.
06:44The smoke and darkness meant I couldn't see far,
06:46and the cramped space meant that most of my vision was blocked by the other team members.
06:50Headlamps are the only source of light down there, and they were just piercing beams through the haze.
06:55Also, you can't see my face.
06:57In movies and TV shows, if someone's wearing a mask or a space helmet or something like that,
07:01they will be perfectly lit.
07:02They'll put lights in the suit so the audience can see their face.
07:06If you do that in real life, whoever's wearing the mask
07:09just sees that own face reflected back at them.
07:12Hopefully you'll be able to work out from context which one of those people is me.
07:15I was at the back there, but there was a round metal door with a hand wheel on it,
07:26just under a metre across, with a cable tunnel behind.
07:29The team was trying to open it, but they couldn't.
07:31It was jammed shut.
07:32Which, for my sake, was probably for the best.
07:35Because we'd initially, we'd have perhaps utilised that.
07:38Yeah.
07:38But because they closed it, you know the BG4 system we have on our back?
07:43Yeah.
07:44We would really call that...
07:46We would call that reduced dimensions.
07:49That's one way of putting it.
07:50Yeah, so to go through that, you'd actually...
07:53And there's a process we have to train every year for that.
07:56We take the set off as a team, put it in front of you, and we put you through that.
08:01And then there's a way of actually manually handling that back on.
08:05To be fair, we decided away from that.
08:07Thanks, that's appreciated.
08:08It would have been too much.
08:09This exercise was on easy mode, because of me.
08:12But with a mask on, a 16 kilo backpack and chaos all around, didn't feel like it.
08:17They could have made this far worse.
08:19And for the mine rescue trainees, they do.
08:22So we might even look at anchor points.
08:24We might run throat through here and pull people through.
08:27So we're testing competence all the time.
08:29And if we're being a little bit naughty, we can also fill this full of water.
08:33So put the smoke in and water, get you wet, uncomfortable, moaning, groaning.
08:37We've looked after you today.
08:38I did think about it, but I thought, no, I don't want to sort of be that cruel.
08:42So this can be filled with water as well.
08:44Since that pipe was closed off, we had to take another route.
08:47It looks like the air, the access into the actual chamber,
08:51there's something on the door, it's impassable.
08:53We're going to have to go through the bottom cable tunnel.
08:55All team members fit and well, all right.
08:57That last call, all team members fit and well, that's important.
09:02Derek would ask each of us, are we fit and well?
09:04And what's the oxygen level in our breathing apparatus?
09:07And he'd write it down so he can monitor it over time.
09:10It's every 15 minutes, maximum, I was getting a gauge reading,
09:14because what I don't want you to do, anyone to do,
09:16is have an issue with a set.
09:17So if I've seen a massive plummet in your set,
09:20I'd start thinking, you're the priority, we're the priority,
09:23start going back to FAB.
09:25Yeah, because it can happen, you can have a set failure,
09:27you can have somebody leaking.
09:28Because you don't want to have more casualties to get out.
09:30Exactly, the team's a priority.
09:32This is why they don't rush the checks.
09:34They might save five minutes on getting in,
09:36but they don't want to be five kilometres into a mineshaft
09:38and then have to go back, or worse, have a second emergency
09:41because of broken or forgotten kit.
09:43Tom, what you got, mate?
09:44One-night train, Captain.
09:46Fitting well?
09:46Fitting well.
09:47Good lad.
09:48Right, what we're going to have to do here, guys,
09:49this is impossible, that's where we are here.
09:52Don't get in.
09:53We're going to go through cable tunnel, thank you.
09:55All right, all right?
09:56Watch out, there's some reduced dimensions through this,
09:58a little bit tired.
09:59Stop me if you come across Nathan, all right?
10:01Yeah.
10:02So we've came along here,
10:03and then you've got what we call a top and bottom roadway.
10:07Hold on, Nathan!
10:09Nathan!
10:11So this is the top roadway.
10:12As you see, it grades off in the top,
10:14and you really do have to get flat.
10:15It's really hard to get through that with any BA on,
10:17with any breathing.
10:18Yeah, because you've got a massive backpack on.
10:20Massive.
10:20Right.
10:20It's a 16 kilogram system on your bike.
10:22It's quite, you know, heavy and complex.
10:24So we went for the safer option.
10:26We went through what we call the bottom cable tunnel.
10:37The tunnel felt long.
10:39Much longer than it actually was.
10:40I'd like to think I'm not unfit,
10:42but it's an alien environment.
10:43It's dark, it's hot, it's hazy, it's disorienting,
10:45and I've got 16 kilos on my back.
10:47I was in the middle of the group there.
10:49Derek leading the way with Mark at the back.
10:51They don't use radios within the group.
10:54That's what they've got the little hand whistles for.
10:55There's quite a few passive supports, so I'd say wooden props.
10:59Right.
10:59There, so we had to make sure they were safe and sound
11:02before we went through.
11:03Right.
11:04So as I'm communicating back to Mark,
11:06Yeah.
11:07Five, which means five whistles, raise awareness.
11:11Four means advance.
11:12Right.
11:12If I came across an obstruction, I'd give Mark a three,
11:15and he'd lead you out.
11:21So that's why we kept advancing,
11:23because that's where the five and the four came from.
11:25And the whistle signals are really clear when there's anything else going on.
11:28With four whistles, we were clear to go ahead.
11:31So we managed to get to the other end.
11:33Where we came out, actually, was at the far end of the cable tunnel.
11:39We popped out here.
11:40Derek then checked the charging wall, the rock face,
11:43to make sure any explosives being used were earthed and safe.
11:46But I had no idea about that, because there was so much going on.
11:50You wouldn't hear anything, because all this is going off here.
11:53Yeah.
11:53You've got this bad boy here throwing smoke at you.
11:56That's automatic.
11:57That's a smoke machine.
11:58So somebody's been around there with a remote going,
11:59squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
12:01Also Liam had another handheld device where he can top it up.
12:04But again, it's just a case of tweaking it for use,
12:06so you can see what on earth that is.
12:08And that looks like an orange strobe up there.
12:09Yeah.
12:09Is that for fire simulation?
12:11It says simulate fire, noise, stress, flashing lights.
12:15Yeah, that went off.
12:16Did that go off for any particular reason,
12:17or just to make it more stressful?
12:19When we were doing the, right, this is safe.
12:21Somebody went around there and I'll do it now.
12:24I'll give you more stress.
12:25I can't be stressed as well.
12:26That's well.
12:31As we came through here,
12:33because it was arcing out on this light here,
12:35this light system, that's indicating.
12:37Oh yeah, I heard that sort of flashing.
12:38Yeah.
12:38So really what's that indicating?
12:40They've got a potential live electrical feed,
12:42which has come in contact with a methane
12:44that's been released through the fall of ground.
12:46And that's caused the explosion blast.
12:49But unfortunately, the power was still on.
12:52I'm thinking because of the flashing strobing light.
12:55So until I said back to FAB,
12:56please confirm that the power is isolated.
12:59If he hadn't have isolated power,
13:01we would have gone out and team two would have come back.
13:03But because he successfully said power is now off.
13:05I can confirm, the power is off team.
13:09Then you can assess it then.
13:10Let's go again.
13:11Then we start going under these arches.
13:14Now these steel arches, what we would call rings.
13:16Rings and cover tins, basically.
13:18I've got no memory of this whatsoever.
13:20No, you wouldn't have seen it.
13:21So again, although it's an old type of support,
13:24very effective support.
13:26So yeah, because what you're doing when you come through here,
13:28you're looking for any supports
13:30that have been knocked out through a blast.
13:31I'm assessing that and feeding it back to FAB.
13:34So if you look at the roof here,
13:35there's proof, if there ever was proof,
13:36that we used to set live fires in here.
13:38So you can see all the carbon in the roof.
13:40So that's all live fire.
13:42This is ultimately proper smoke in BA.
13:45And back in the day when I came through the rank,
13:47this would be set on fire, I can assure you.
13:49And it's obviously through risk assessment
13:50and everything else that went with it.
13:52We sort of make things a little bit,
13:54it's quite safer now.
13:55They used to set the basement on fire
13:57and they can still simulate it with strobes and thicker smoke.
14:01I did say something that in hindsight was a bit foolish,
14:04that you'd have the smell of smoke.
14:06But you wouldn't.
14:07With it being a positive pressure system as well though, Tom,
14:10any leaks that you get will go out,
14:12but what it's doing, you're going to start hemorrhaging your oxygen supply.
14:15That's why I'm checking you every 15 minutes,
14:17because if you start plummeting,
14:18we've got 55 bars to get back.
14:21It's not that air's getting in, it's that oxygen's getting out.
14:22Exactly.
14:22So what I do, it'll blow any contaminants away,
14:24well that's the real important bit of getting a decent seal.
14:27Yeah.
14:28Closed circuit breather means closed circuit.
14:31Now, the folks planning the exercise today knew that no matter how much they threw at the team
14:35and at me, the final video was probably going to be about the same length,
14:39so they did skip past a couple of obstacles
14:41that they might put in for a full four-hour long exercise.
14:44And we usually block this roadway off with ventilation tubes, really small ones,
14:49so you might have been going through that today,
14:51and we can build walls and put what we call an explosion-proof stopping on,
14:55so again, we might be doing that in a mine,
14:57so today we sort of kept it simple in regards to checking passive support.
15:01So when I say passive support, I mean something such a wood prop.
15:05Yeah, those wood props were holding up the roof,
15:07or at least they were simulating holding up the roof.
15:09A big long stick of wood, and then a pair of wedges at the top, hammered in from the sides,
15:13to add pressure and keep everything, hopefully, safe.
15:17I've got a prop out here!
15:18Get me a couple of guys to send me a prop!
15:21So, what we had to do was get a team to sort of check roof conditions,
15:26address any falling ground, and obviously set this passive support to enable us to go through.
15:31Step, mate!
15:33That's, set the tip out, that's lovely!
15:35There's some way to...
15:40Nathan, look after the team, I'm going to have a look in here.
15:42Hello, Baba!
15:43Yeah?
15:44But once we get in here, we start to hear the casualty, Nathan, moaning and groaning.
15:48Nathan, can you hear me?
15:52Right, casualty located on the side of the hopper arrangement.
15:56Great, we've found Nathan.
15:57We just need to get to a collapsed hopper with some rockfall.
16:01But again, they could have made this more difficult.
16:03We'll fill that hopper full of stone,
16:06so it's as realistic as you can get as regards to burying somebody,
16:09which you wouldn't want to do.
16:11Cool!
16:11So what you can start doing is dropping debris into you.
16:14So again, it's putting people at risk, as much as you can, but safely.
16:19Yeah.
16:19So risk assessed.
16:20So as I clambered through that, which felt unpleasant as it was,
16:23Yes.
16:23You might have been dropping more rocks on me.
16:25Come on a good week where this has been set up for hot and humidity,
16:28so we didn't want to bury you, we wanted to get you through there and make sure you're safe.
16:31We all had full breathing gear on.
16:34Suddenly, one of us might have been caught and buried under rockfall,
16:37and one of the things that was repeated over and over,
16:40like with the oxygen checks, is that our safety comes first.
16:43Even if we can hear the casualty, we check everything first, we go slowly,
16:47because right now there is one casualty.
16:50And the situation's going to get a hell of a lot worse if we have to be rescued as well.
16:54As we went, Derek was also checking things called telltales.
16:58They're bolted into the mine while everything's stable, and if the roof or anything else moves,
17:02that'll expose different parts of the telltales,
17:05and act as a warning that things might not be as steady as they seem.
17:09Green would be good, that'd tell me we've got no movement above the roof bolted high,
17:12but because all the green section's gone, it's telling me the roof is unsafe.
17:17And in some of the mines we may visit, again, training competence, I'm familiar with that,
17:21people coming through, it aren't, so we've brought this into the training.
17:25We made it through the hopper arrangement and we got to Nathan.
17:27We needed to do two things, secure Nathan and secure the roof.
17:32If everybody had came through and would have just worked on Nathan, we're at high risk.
17:37Nathan has got a broken leg, his atmosphere, his breathing is okay.
17:41Right.
17:41So we can leave him there for now, we can address this.
17:45I couldn't help with Nathan because I'm not a first aider, but I could help with the roof.
17:49So while he was screaming, and they're giving him oxygen and splinting up a broken leg,
17:53I was helping put another prop up.
17:55What's that?
17:56Got it.
17:57Not better.
17:58Why, Jeff?
17:58Why not, man?
17:59I lost the white hammer down here.
18:01Yeah.
18:01My accent had got a lot more Nottinghamshire by that point,
18:04because I spent a good bit of my childhood round there.
18:06I was picking up cues from everyone around,
18:08old patterns in my brain were coming back.
18:09That wasn't a sledgehammer I was picking up.
18:12It were a sledgehammer.
18:16Also, full marks to Nathan's acting,
18:18he was doing a very good job of playing the role of
18:21man with broken leg who's in severe pain.
18:23His injury was treated, he had a lower leg fracture closed, so there's no blood.
18:30That was him over live.
18:30YouTube thanks you.
18:32Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:32They did ask in advance whether YouTube monetization would be okay
18:36with large amounts of fake blood,
18:37because they could have mocked up a compound fracture,
18:41or something even nastier,
18:42and the team would have no idea until they got there.
18:45They got Nathan in what's called the patient packaging system,
18:48kind of a flexible stretcher.
18:49I finished helping with the prop.
18:51I'll let you know once we're on his way out, mate.
18:54People were laying all this information,
18:55still doing the gauge checks every 15 minutes,
18:57because if anyone's dropped off, Nathan's left. Simple.
19:00And in the manner of all good stories,
19:02the return journey was a lot faster.
19:04The impassable blockages could be easily cleared from the other side,
19:07because whoever put the exercise together understands how narrative works.
19:11And Nathan had a fairly smooth trip out.
19:13Luke, what have you got of oxygen last off, mate?
19:16164, fit and well, good lad, yeah.
19:18164.
19:18Oh, you've got...
19:19George, what was it?
19:20154, fit and well.
19:21Oh, mate.
19:22155.
19:22And then Tom Scott.
19:23165, fit and well, captain.
19:25I used more oxygen than anyone,
19:27apart from the two people who were lugging the casualty and doing the heavy work.
19:31Yeah, I'm the only one here not literally dripping in sweat, so...
19:33Yeah.
19:35That tells me you're clever.
19:39Next time, a visit that goes into the uncanny valley and out the other side.
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