Emery County Sheriff Lamar Guymon carried extra flashlights and glow sticks when he entered the Wilberg Mine. He didn’t like the dark and was afraid of getting lost inside the mine, but he had jobs to do.
A fire on Dec. 19, 1984, killed 27 coal miners. It took 11 months of depriving oxygen to to the mine to stop the blaze. Guymon took miner and rescue training during those months so he could enter to retrieve the bodies and investigate the cause of the fire.
Almost 23 years later, Guymon helped Emery County through another mining catastrophe — at Crandall Canyon.