Crandall Canyon Mine a year later

HELPER — Nelda Erickson wanted her husband Don back.

Wendy Black's husband, Dale, tried to reach Don and five other trapped miners. Both men perished last year in separate collapses Aug. 6 and Aug. 16 that killed nine men inside the Crandall Canyon Mine.

"Dale would have died trying, no matter what," Black said. "It was terrifying in there."

A year later, Erickson still reaches for her husband's shirt to smell him again, to remember him and feel some comfort. Even now she can barely talk about Don without crying.

Black still speaks out loud to her late husband, whose initial "D" she tattooed on her ring finger as a visible gesture of lasting solidarity with her high school sweetheart. "I'm married for life," she said. The wedding band is now on her other hand.

Black uses one word to describe what life's been like this past year.

"Lonely," she said, sitting on a couch in her living room, a photo of Dale over her shoulder. "We miss him every day. He always used to call me 'Babe."'

In the aftermath of Crandall Canyon, so much has changed in the lives of those left behind. So much has stayed the same for much of the rest of the world.

A lone security guard still keeps watch over the deserted grounds at the mine, which during the repeated failed rescue attempts its owner-operator called an "evil mountain." The mine that for years had men take from it now was taking the men. No one knows when, or if, their bodies will be returned to their loved ones.

Besides Erickson and Black, Crandall Canyon claimed Kerry Allred, Brandon Phillips, Manuel Sanchez, Jose Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan Villa, Brandon Kimber and Gary Lynn "Gibb" Jensen.

Like Black, Kimber and Jensen died in the rescue attempt. The other six met their fate in the first collapse.

While Crandall Canyon has since shut down, its co-owner and operator, Bob Murray, continues to run other mines in Utah and the rest of the country.

Just last week, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration proposed leveling fines of more than $1.8 million against the Crandall mine operators and engineering firm, numbers that are unprecedented in mining history.

The families, too, have filed multiple lawsuits, which remain in limbo much like any potential recovery of the men's bodies.

More than 100 congressional bills have been proposed in the wake of the disaster, political leaders have called for safety reforms, and the finger-pointing has been endless. Utah convened its own mine safety commission and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. vowed to shepherd new policies and procedures through the creation of a new office and a new director.

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