H.E. Kinder knew something was amiss when the coal tram he was riding failed to slow down where it normally did to let him hop off. By February 1910, the sixteen-year-old mine worker had been laboring in West Virginia's coal districts since before the age of fourteen, evading mine safety laws by moving around between mines when company officials learned his age. Now he was legal, but in trouble nonetheless. As the motor trip of coal cars sped up, he assessed his chances. “My object was to save myself,” he recalled. “I knew the cars would wreck down there.” H.E. had a pretty good idea of the fate that awaited him if he was not off the cars by the time they crashed. At best, he might be thrown out; at worst, the cars would knock down the timbers, collapsing the slate, and certainly snuffing out his life. “I knew, just knew it was get out there or get hurt on below, and I made for safety as soon as possible.” His only chance was to jump for it. Springing from the cars, he aimed for the bank outside the tracks, but when his feet hit the loose rock, the impact swung him around and thrust his leg under the runaway tram.