Miners and their families faced many dangers in Glen Carbon, where on June 3, 1905, A. Piekar, aged 45, was instantly crushed to death by a fall of slate at the No. 2 Mine of the Madison Coal Corporation shortly after two o'clock in the afternoon, while his 21 year old son, working in the same room, was injured. Superintendent Anton Daenzer said the father was holding the light while the son lit the fuse, and just after it was lit, a slab of slate about four feet wide and eight feet long fell on the father and crushed him; the son, seeing that the shot was about to go off, fled the explosion, which threw more coal and slate on the father, who was dead before he could be taken from the mine. He was survived by a wife and five children, three of whom were grown. In 1911, Charles Krallman, county mine inspector from Glen Carbon, was appointed by Illinois Governor Deneen to establish fire-fighting and rescue stations in the Illinois coal fields. Rescue Station No. 2 was built to house the coal company's first-aid equipment and was a state-of-the-art building for its time, with training rooms for gas-mask training, rescue work, and first aid. It also had a pay window where miners received cash pay envelopes every two weeks, and on paydays guards with shotguns were on duty on the roofs of the station and the nearby hoisting engine room. Each station had a railroad car fully equipped with oxygen helmets, pulmonary apparatus, and cooking, eating, and sleeping compartments, ready for instant use and able to be quickly moved by rail to any mine to attend injured miners. Voluntary groups of men and women met regularly to practice mine rescue operations and emergency first aid, and many awards were bestowed on the villagers for their efforts.