A miner told me.

This happened in Kuzbass in 197*. As a young specialist, he was assigned to the brigade of the elderly burned miner Mitrich. There was nothing special in his brigade except one. Sometimes during the shift, they befriended a rat nest. The rat's mother and all the rats were killed, except one. Mitrich came out of him - feeding milk from the dish when he was young, dissolving antibiotics in his milk.
After such an increased care on good nutrition, the rat strengthened, grew up and turned into a larger rotted rat named Jerome. Jerome lived in a brigade, had his own bag, loved salad and fresh bread, and ate lunch with the entire brigade.
They worked in an old pre-war mine, picking coal almost from the center of the Earth. Once it happened during the emergency shift - the methane pairs were torn, the storm almost collapsed throughout, overwhelming the passage of meters on the ground.
200 with an elevator. Some of the miners were crushed like a fly, the rest managed to jump back into the depths of the mines.
They started counting their chances. The air is leaking, but from the water and food supplies for six people only half flakes of water and three sandwiches, which Mitchell put for lunch. Rescuers will need at least a month to get to the miners. In the best case (do not forget - the 70s, of all rescue equipment - excavator and blades with fighters).
Everybody came up. Suddenly, two rats eyes appeared in the darkness, Jerome.
Dedicated to it with a lamp - the rat lies on its back and masters with his legs toward the slope. Then he turned around, ran a little, again on his back and mashed. And so three times. He calls for something, one of the miners suggested.
Nothing to do, follow him.
Chris, realizing that people were following him, no longer turned around, got into the wreck and disappeared in the cracks. The miners followed him. At the top of the slope remained a gap, the size of accurately to counter the most dimensional.
They opposed. Within five meters, the explosion hit the wall of the stall and opened a side passage. entered there. It is not possible to get up in full height, but it is possible to get up in four. Chris waited until the last miner got into the passage and ran on. Six miners in the four are behind him. They crossed a distance and clinged to the wall.
Oh, Jeremiah, it has led to a deadlock — summarized Mitrich. Someone from the miners advised to rename him Susannina.
Go back, Mitrich ordered, barely turning in the stall and rolling back. Here Jerome jumped and grabbed into Mitrich's trousers, procured Mitrich's breezent matter and caviar to the blood. It hangs on it, with its back legs. Mitchell is in pain. But Jerome does not let him go.
But he tells us, “It is necessary to crack,” one of the miners guessed, jumped into a deadlock and began to hit him with the hammer that was with him. As soon as the hammer began to bite into the breed, Jerome immediately released Mitrich and lay next to him. Two of the finest were sent back for the instrument, and after an hour, changing each other, they began to crack the breed. The slopes were pulled off to the slope.
How long it was, and how many meters it was, nobody remembers. When the batteries were installed, they were in the dark. They were so tired that they worked like machines – without emotions, on a machine.
Therefore, when the hammer, cutting through the breed, flew into the emptiness, no one was surprised or delighted.
When they were lifted to the surface from a neighboring, abandoned mine, they continued for sixty meters in two weeks, while rescuers were unable to completely clear the debris of the collapsed mine, which collapsed twice, forcing them to start cleaning a new one.
And Yeryomu Mitrich took home and from then on until his own rat death.
Jerome lived in an individual house and every morning his wife personally changed his drinking water, fat and bread for the freshest.
He was buried in a box made specifically for this occasion by miners from that brigade from a valuable tree breed, and a tiny granite stone was placed on the grave with the only inscription "Jerome from 25 people" (just so many people lived at the time in the families of the rescued six miners).
That stone still stands there.