Sonman Mine Pickaxe

The Sonman Mine Shaft Coal Company experienced an explosion on July 15, 1940, near Portage, Pennsylvania, in which 63 out of the 90 miners died from the blast and methane gas that hindered the rescue effort. People who dig with it turn the ground or dirt their digging into coal. But, the user contracts coalworker's pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) and releases concentrated levels of methane gas around the person.