News on Screen

Series

Series Name

Mining Review 8th Year

Issue

Issue No.

9

Date Released

May 1955

Stories in this Issue:

• 1. SURFACE TRAINING
• 2. GLOSTER GETTER
• 3. HOTHOUSE

Story

Story No. within this Issue

3 / 3

Summary

BFI synopsis: research by University and Coal Board scientists on what rescue-worders can physically endure.
NCB Commentary - Always on call in Britain’s coalfields are the men of the Mines Rescue Service, ready to face the enemy who always strikes the first swift blow. Fire, explosion, the call to save men from high concentrations of black damp and firedamp, the recovery of sealed off areas; they’re all part of a tough job any day or night of the week.
To help the Mines Rescue Committee give fresh advice for carrying out rescue operations when it’s hot and moist underground, the Coal Board in 1953 gave the go-ahead for a series of experiments using Mines Rescue men to find out human reactions when working in fierce heat and humidity.
Part of the research has been carried out at Oxford. At the University’s department of Human Anatomy a team of Oxford and Coal Board scientists worked out tests to be carried out on mines rescue men.
One of the tests is to find out how much the human body can stand under the worse-than-tropical conditions in which recues must often be carried out. Here a rescueman steps up and down to the beat of a metronome while the air he breathes out is kept for analysis, and measurements of his blood flow and pressure are recorded.
Co-operating with Oxford in the experiments is the Doncaster and District Mines Rescue Station. Here at Doncaster is a specially built hot chamber kept at 120 degrees Fahrenheit and 100% humidity. 43-year-old Ernest Flower, a Deputy from Steetley pit, is one of the volunteer guinea pigs.
Before going through the tests Flower is weighed. In an hour’s time he’ll have lost 2 lbs. All volunteers get a medical check-up before going into the heat.
Different types of breathing gear are used in the tests; the Aeropher, seen here, uses liquid air. The Proto, which Ernest Flower is wearing, feeds compressed oxygen.
There’s still another check before Flower enters the hot chamber. His skin temperatures are recorded under normal conditions. The wires on his back will be connected up from time to time to give readings once he’s inside. In here, Flower might have left England and be in the trophies, but for him there is no sitting about for long; there’s work to be done.
Before he starts, temperature readings are taken. During the first half-hour of the tests, Flower walks to the beat of a metronome at a steady two miles an hour with a 50 lbs. sandbag on his shoulder.
There is a constant check of the temperature and humidity inside the chamber and every four minutes Flower takes a one minute rest period while his temperature readings are studied and recorded outside the chamber.
At half-time there’s a five-minute rest, then Flower starts humping twenty-four 50 lb. sandbags from one end of the hot-chamber to the other. One thing the tests have shown is that men between 31 and 45 can take it as well as those in the 19-31 age group.
The results of these tests is an information bulletin setting out the findings so that Rescue Team leaders all over the country and, incidentally, overseas, will know better than ever before just how much their men can stand and what they can safely ask them to do in their fight against an enemy who always strikes the first blow but not, if they can help it, the last.

Researcher Comments

Commentary recorded 1 April 1955.

Keywords

Science and technology; Mining; Emergency services

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases   Used for synopsis
The National Archives COAL 32   /3 Scripts for Mining Review, 1949-1956

Credits:

Production Co.

Documentary Technicians Alliance

Sponsor

National Coal Board