Once upon a time 700ft under a hill in West Virginia

Once upon a time when Lord Kadizzle was trying to earn money to go to college he operated a shuttle car like the one pictured above.  Kadizzle was nearly killed by operating one of these machines. A shuttle car hauls coal from the face of the mine where it is cut from the seam by a continuous miner to an underground conveyor.

The shuttle car steers with all four wheels and is powered by an electrical cable. The cable is played out as the shuttle car goes toward the miner and is picked up on a reel as the shuttle car goes toward the conveyor.  Shuttle cars are equipped with two drivers seats which face each other.  When you need to go the opposite direction you simply switch seats.  Operating this vehicle in a tunnel 20 feet wide and four feet high is difficult and dangerous.

One  day Kadizzles foreman instructed him to pick up some supplies with the shuttle car. To do this Kadizzle had to make a turn contrary to the way the mine was laid out for shuttle cars.  As Kadizzle made the turn his head got caught between a block of wood on the roof of the mine and the seat back of the shuttle car.  Normally stopping the shuttle car would have been a simple matter of taking your foot off the throttle.  However, when Kadizzle took his foot of the throttle the wheels on the shuttle car continued to move the shuttle car forward.  Kadizzle quickly realized his head was going to be crushed.  By some miracle the shuttle car became stuck and lost traction.  With the wheels spinning Kadizzle was trapped. Another miner came to his rescue and hit the emergency shut off.  Kadizzle was almost killed.  Coal mining is a dangerous occupation.