Joseph Laurent Heroux helped to rescue Gilbert Mosses from a rock fall, Salmo, British Columbia, April 18, 1969. In a lead and zinc mine, a fall of ore knocked Mosses, 53, mine mucker boss, into a loading chute and covered him except for his head and one arm with rocks of various sizes. He was injured severely but remained conscious. Among those who gathered at the scene were Heroux, 33, warehouse accountant serving as company first-aid man, and the mine manager, who supervised the rescue work. After an opening was cut in the chute’s bulkhead and a clearing made in the rocks piled against it, two mine shift bosses crawled into the chute and placed shoring. Others positioned timbers at the opposite end of the chute. At times during the rescue efforts, Heroux and a physician crawled into the chute to minister to Mosses; and the mine manager checked the work. In limited space in the chute, the two mine shift bosses, a mine loader operator, and six miners worked in teams to remove the rocks from Mosses. Because some had to be chipped away, a drill was used; and whenever the vibrations loosened some of the shoring it was reset. After the rock-removing teams had worked a total of three and a half-hours, Mosses was freed. He recovered from his injuries.
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