General News
16 September, 2024
Bev to join miners memorial walk in tribute to her brother Peter
There will be a gathering in Mount Isa on Thursday morning to remember those who were killed in the mines.
Bev McKay was raising her young family in Toowoomba in the cold winter months of 1976 when she received a call from her parents to let her know that her brother, Peter Sturmfels, had been involved in an accident at Mount Isa Mines.
A qualified pipefitter, Peter had been underground on night shift drilling holes in a roof for pipe hangers when a sudden rock fall trapped him at about 3.30am.
Adding to the family’s anguish was that Peter’s brother, Gary, was among the first paramedics to treat him at the scene.
“We were told that Peter had been crushed under a rock from the chest down and had been rushed to hospital – but he would survive,” Bev explains.
“My parents were even talking to him while he was in the hospital bed, and he was saying he felt so lucky because he thought he was a goner.
“My parents left the hospital to have a rest and when they returned, the nurses and the doctors wouldn’t allow them to go back into his room.”
Bev had anxiously waited for news about her brother’s condition all day.
She did not own a telephone and would take a short drive to a nearby phone booth to find out the latest updates from her family in Mount Isa.
It was on one of these drives that she turned on the radio to hear the newsreader announce the death of her brother.
The date was July 20, 1976. Peter had celebrated his 24th birthday less than two weeks earlier.
Remembering those events 48 years later, Bev says the day is seared into her memory.
“When a family loses someone in that way, it is such a shock and it has a lasting impact. My parents, especially my mother, never fully recovered from it,” she told North West Weekly.
When her mother, Edna “Midge” Sturmfels, passed away 25 years later in 2001, her final request was granted, which was to be buried at Sunset Lawn Cemetery in the same plot as her son.
The grief of the parents is evident on Peter’s tombstone, which states he was “our son and brother – accidentally killed” followed by the lines “though absent you are ever near – still loved, still missed, still very dear.”
The suddenness and confusion surrounding the mining accident is seen in the news reports at the time – The North West Star reported that Peter was in a “satisfactory” condition in hospital suffering only from broken legs. By the next day, the paper included updates that Peter had passed away due to internal injuries.
As she counts down the days until her 80th birthday, Bev plans to participate in the miners memorial day walk today (Thursday).
Bev said she wanted to not only remember her brother, but also pay tribute to all the men who had died at Mount Isa Mines and the families who had been forced to carry the grief for the long years after these fatal accidents.
“Peter was a very normal bloke – he liked playing rugby league and he liked doing up cars and he liked hanging out with his mates,” Bev explains.
“He died so young and so suddenly – and so much time has passed since that day. But you still think about all the things in life he never got to experience.
“There are many other families who have had to go through that also – it is just so sad.”
Mount Isa residents are invited to gather on the Civic Centre lawn at 8.30am for a 9am start, where the crowd will walk on to the John Middlin Centre on Church Street.
A memorial day service at Collinsville will be live streamed at the centre from 10.30am.