Documentary on Quecreek Mine accident filmed at Tour-Ed in Fawn
Accidents are a thing of the past at Tour-Ed Mine except in certain circumstances, like those that occurred over the weekend.
Filmmakers used the former coal mine -- now a museum and tourist attraction -- to film segments of a documentary about the 2002 Quecreek Mine Disaster in Somerset County.
Bob Black, mine manager and one of the three trustees for Tour-Ed, said the documentary will be part of a series involving crucial decisions made in the course of disasters, and will air internationally on cable TV. In the incident at Quecreek, nine miners were trapped in a shaft that flooded suddenly on July 24, 2002. After being trapped for 77 hours, all nine men were rescued.
The production company from Great Britain, which is working under contract for a well-known magazine whose name was not disclosed, would not permit the Valley News Dispatch to photograph the crew's activity or allow actors or film crew members to talk to a reporter.
"They did some filming out at the fire hall at Quecreek in Somerset County but the main filming of everything underground is being done here," Black said.
Black said that the crew went about 2,500 feet into the mine on Sunday.
He said the nine-member film crew was at the mine for about 15 hours yesterday and Saturday. In addition, about 19 actors were there Saturday, he said.
Black said some of the tour guides at the mine got into the film in small cameo appearances.
"The actors they brought in, two of them were real coal miners and the rest were actors." Black said. "From a safety standpoint, we couldn't have actors running any of the mine equipment so, some of the Tour-Ed mine guides -- Jack DeVando of West Deer, Rich Zilka, an East Deer native who lives in Penn Hills, and Jason Shoemaker of Arnold -- got to run the equipment in the film."
He said the film's producers also looked at Seldom Seen Mine near Patton in Cambria County as a possible location. But Tour-Ed's working equipment brought them here.
"That is what sold them on it," Black said.
In addition, he said there are sections of the mine where the coal seam was only four feet high, about the same height of the seam at Quecreek, which lends more realism to the film.
Other films shot at Tour-Ed include "Out of the Black" in 2001 and "Act of Vengeance" a 1986 film about the slaying of union official Joseph "Jock" Yablonsky.
"The fact that the moviemakers want to shoot their films here, to me, justifies (former owner) Ira Wood's dream for this place," Black said. "We wanted it to be interactive for the public, that's why he insisted that the equipment stay in working condition."
He said that Joe Sbaffoni, one of the officials who played a key role in the Quecreek rescue and is now director of the state's Bureau of Mine Safety, suggested Tour-Ed as a possible location to the production company.
"Joe's from Springdale originally and he always tries to promote the area whenever he can," Black said.
Black, himself a former miner, said he enjoyed hosting the film crew and was amused by how the actors coped with their underground surroundings.
"These actors," Black said, smiling. "It's not wintertime down there. It's 55 degrees but these actors are sitting there waiting for their scenes and they've got blankets wrapped around them."
