John “Jackie” MacNeil with his wife Debbie (Prince) MacNeil on their wedding day. MacNeil was 26 when he died in hospital on March 8, 1979 due to brain injuries caused by the explosion on Feb. 24 and he left behind his wife and four-month old daughter.

People wait near No. 26 colliery on Feb. 24, 1979 waiting for news and to see if their loved ones were safe, as an ambulance stands by, in this photo that appeared in the Feb. 26, 1979 edition of the Cape Breton Post.

An unknown man walks toward other people waiting to hear news about the miners down below in No. 26 colliery after the explosion on Feb. 24, 1979, in this photo that appeared in the Feb. 26, 1979 edition of the Cape Breton Post.

An unknown man walks toward other people waiting to hear news about the miners down below in No. 26 colliery after the explosion on Feb. 24, 1979, in this photo that appeared in the Feb. 26, 1979 edition of the Cape Breton Post.

(From left) Joanne Shepard and her mother Theresa Young hold a of photo of Fabian “Fabe” Young, Shepard’s father and Young’s husband. Fabe was one of 10 miners who died during the explosion inside No. 26 colliery in Glace Bay on Feb. 24, 1979. Two other miners died later in hospital and four survived. The photo of Fabian was taken by Warren Gordon who gave the family a copy of it.

Theresa Young with her husband Fabian Young, early in their marriage. They celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary five days before he was killed in the No. 26 colliery mine explosion on Feb. 24, 1979.

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Editor’s Note: Readers may find some of the details of this story disturbing.

GLACE BAY, N.S. — Fabe Young had a brand-new suit and brand-new hat to wear on New Year’s Eve that he also planned to wear to his only daughter’s graduation in June.

But he only got to wear them once.

A devasting explosion on Feb. 24, 1978, inside Cape Breton Development Corporation’s (Devco) No. 26 colliery in Glace Bay, nine kilometres from the pithead and about 700 metres under the Atlantic Ocean, took his life.

Nine other miners died in the mine that day. Two died in hospital in Halifax in March, as a result of injuries sustained from the blast which happened sometime between 4:10 a.m. and 4:20 a.m.

People wait near No. 26 colliery on Feb. 24, 1979 waiting for news and to see if their loved ones were safe, as an ambulance stands by, in this photo that appeared in the Feb. 26, 1979 edition of the Cape Breton Post.

Fabian (Fabe) Young’s widow, Theresa, still feels the pain of losing her husband who she said did everything for her and their eight children.

The couple celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary five day before the explosion and, 40 years later, she still feels “lonely and anxious” as Feb. 24 approaches.

“February is never a good month … It doesn’t seem like 40 years. Sometimes it feels like yesterday,” Young said with a slight smile, an apparent attempt to keep the tears in her eyes from falling.

The couple used to bowl together on Saturday nights and Fabian drove his wife everywhere, including her weekly Friday night bingo game. He had dropped her off at bingo on Feb. 23 before heading over to No. 26 to work the night shift.

And that was the last time she saw her husband.

No. 26 colliery in Glace Bay

Explosion on Feb. 24, 1979

Around 4:10 a.m.

16 men in mine

10 died down below

Six taken to hospital in Halifax

Two died in hospital

Four survived

Two survivors still living

Young said the “void” she feels will never go away. The couple’s daughter, Joanne Shepard, agrees.

“Sometimes I wake up at four o’clock in the morning, and this is when the explosion happened,” said Shepard, who is a nurse at Taigh Na Mara nursing home in Glace Bay.

“It doesn’t even have to be February. Any month, I’ll wake up at four in the morning … You just can’t forget something like this.”

Sheldon Gouthro was shift manager at No. 26 and was working the night of the explosion, which investigators found was caused by methane gas ignited by a spark off the shearer. He and another manager were the first two in the mine to rescue the 16 workers inside.

“I was 32 years underground and that was the worst night of my life,” said Gouthro, who was also one of the draegermen (mine rescue workers) who was called to the Westray Mine disaster in 1992.

“I’ve seen fatalities before, but that was the worst.”

An unknown man walks toward other people waiting to hear news about the miners down below in No. 26 colliery after the explosion on Feb. 24, 1979, in this photo that appeared in the Feb. 26, 1979 edition of the Cape Breton Post.

Miners arriving for day shift were quickly recruited to help, with many going underground to bring the men out. Coal had buried some of the victims on the panline. Six were alive; some like Albert Hall (who died on March 25 in hospital) walked out of the mine with help while others had skin peeling from the severe burns they sustained.

Jerry Parsons arrived for his day shift on Feb. 24 at 6 a.m. and met police on 1-B Road. Not knowing what was going on, he went to a group of men in a corner of the wash house to find out.

“Someone said they think someone died down in the mine. There was a crew down at that time, one (of the men was) my father Art Parsons,” he said.

It was Parson’s dad’s 47th birthday, something that has become a bittersweet celebration every year, as he is also reminded of the tragedy in the mine that day and the things they saw.

“As I went down the cage to the pit bottom, I met a stretcher with men almost on a run with Jackie MacNeil. I could hear him gasping for air as they passed,” he remembers.

When he and the crew he was with got proper breathing tanks, they went in further to the “top of the deep,” roughly 760 feet underground.

“Bodies were being put in boxes … the rake came to the top of the deep. One body at a time was taken out of the riding car (rake boxes),” he said.

“We (then) put them back in another box and then we got in the box, with the body. It was like getting in a coffin with a body.”

Charles Phillip Ogley, known to most as “Bear,” drove the ambulance that day and his daughter, Ave Maria Ogley MacDonald, said memories of that day haunted him until he died in 1997 from lung cancer.

“He was in (hospital) and asking if anyone heard the sirens. He cried and was telling us what he went through,” she said.

“His last days in ICU in Glace Bay all he did was relive that day yelling, ‘I can’t fit all the bodies in the morgue.’” The bodies had to be stacked in the ambulance and, because of the burns, they stuck together. My dad had nightmares from that day on.”

“It doesn’t seem like 40 years. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.”

- Theresa Young

Jackie MacNeil’s widow, Debbie MacDonald, heard about the explosion on the radio in the morning. Having just moved back to Cape Breton with their four-month-old daughter, MacDonald learned MacNeil was alive and she had to go to Halifax to identify him.

“He had a full beard when he went to work that night, but it was burnt off from the explosion. His face was covered in coal dust. I had to look at his feet to know it was him,” said MacDonald, who has remarried.

The weather was so bad when she was flown up to Halifax that the bus taking her to the Victoria General Hospital slid off the road and tipped over.

She is thankful someone took her to the hospital to see her 26-year-old husband, who lived for another 12 days before dying from the head injury he suffered in the explosion.

“My grief for my husband is still strong. After 40 years, not a day goes by that he is not beside me and in my thoughts. Life goes on but I will never forget him and the love he gave to me and our daughter,” she said.

“She is 40 years old now and just had a baby girl, her first child, and her middle name is Jacklyn in honour of her father, so you see he is very present with us and we still cherish him.”

The miners we lost - Rapped up rest in peace:

Fabian (Fabe) Young

Age: 47

Left behind: wife Theresa (Wrice) Young, eight children

Lived in: New Aberdeen

Died: In mine

William (Billy) Cooke

Age: 33

Left behind: wife Theresa (MacDonald) Cooke, two children

Lived in: Bridgeport

Died: In mine

Clifford (Cliff) Sharpe

Age: 28

Left behind: wife Ester (Tracey) Sharpe, two children

Lived in: Glace Bay

Died: In mine

Robert Anderson

Age: 32

Left behind: wife Irene Anderson, two step-children

Lived in: Dominion

Died: In mine

Michael Roberts

Age: 24

Left behind: wife Brenda Claire (Donovan) Roberts, two children

Lived in: Glace Bay

Died: In mine

Wayne Mills

Age: 40

Left behind: wife Patricia (Metcalfe) Mills, three children

Lived in: Glace Bay

Died: In mine

Fabian (Fabe) Ward

Age: 32

Left behind: wife Monica (MacIntrye) Ward, one child

Lived in: Bridgeport

Died: In mine

Paul Purcell

Age: 25

Left behind: wife Brenda (Duder) Purcell, one child

Lived in: Glace Bay (born Newfoundland)

Died: In mine

Reginald (Reggie) MacNeil

Age: 30

Left behind: wife Dolores (Hyrne) MacNeil, two children

Died: In mine

Frederick (Fred) Matheson

Age: 44

Left behind: wife Lorraine (Leger) Matheson, one child

Died: In mine

John (Jackie) MacNeil

Age: 26

Left behind: wife Debbie (Prince) MacNeil MacDonald, one child (four months old)

Died: March 8, 1979 in hospital

Albert (Allie) Hall

Age: 38

Left behind: wife Frances (MacDougall) Hall, five children, one step-child

Lived in: Glace Bay

Died: March 22, 1979 in hospital

Our miners that survived:

George Stubbert

Kenny Brinston

Kevin King

Wayne McInnis (died 1999)

A partial timeline of mining disasters in Cape Breton, 1900-2019

1903 – No. 5 colliery, Reserve Mines, gas explosion (3 deaths)

1908 – No. 3 colliery, Port Hood, explosion (10 deaths)

1911 – No. 3 colliery, Sydney Mines, gas explosion (14 deaths)

1917 - Dominion No. 12 colliery, New Waterford, explosion, (65 deaths)

1938 – Cable break in mine shaft, Sydney Mines (20 deaths)

1952 – Dominion No. 12 colliery, New Waterford, gas explosion (7 deaths)

1973 – No. 26 colliery explosion, Glace Bay (6 injured)

1979 – No. 26 colliery, explosion, Glace Bay (12 died)

*included are events where multiple people were injured or died

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