Corey Black, son of Dale Black, left; Ashley Pruitt, Black's daughter, center; and Wendy Black, Black's wife, hold hands Tuesday during Dale Black's funeral at Huntington City Cemetery in Huntington, Utah. Dale, 48, died Aug. 16 in a mine accident trying to rescue six miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine.

Huntington, Utah ? With six trapped coal miners all but left for dead in a crumbling mountain, families and friends vented their frustration at the mine’s owner Tuesday and asked: Was it too dangerous to be working there in the first place?

At a funeral Tuesday for one of the three rescue workers killed, a friend of one of the trapped miners confronted mine co-owner Bob Murray and accused him of skimping on the rescue efforts. He then handed Murray a dollar bill.

“This is just to help you out so you don’t kill him,” the man said.

Murray’s head snapped back as if slapped. When the man wouldn’t take back the bill, Murray threw the money on the ground. “I’ll tell you what, son, you need to find out about the Lord,” Murray said.

It was an emotional exchange with an owner who had insisted that rescue of the miners was his top priority since the collapse. And it revealed more than just the frustration of people in this mining community in central Utah’s coal belt, where most still speak in whispers when criticizing the officials whose businesses pay their bills.

Critics are now openly calling the mine a disaster waiting to happen and pointing fingers at Murray Energy Corp. and the federal government as the agents of the tragedy.

Miners’ advocates have accused the Mine Safety and Health Administration in recent years of being too accommodating to the industry at the expense of safety.

In question is the decision to allow Crandall Canyon’s operators to mine between two sections that had already been excavated using a mining technique that causes the roof to collapse.

In that middle section, the mine was cut like a city block, leaving pillars of coal holding up the mountain above. MSHA approved a plan allowing the operators to pull out the pillars, a practice called “retreat mining,” which causes deliberate, controlled roof cave-ins.

Experts think any investigation will focus on why MSHA agreed to that plan.

Those conditions are so unstable, some companies will leave behind the last of the coal rather than risk lives trying to pull additional pillars, experts have said.

In addition to the questions about structure, experts say that the operators and MSHA should have been aware that deep mines such as Crandall Canyon are also prone to “bumps” – an unpredictable and dangerous phenomenon that happens when settling layers of earth bear down on the walls of a coal mine. The force can cause pillars to fail, turning chunks of coal into deadly missiles.

The Aug. 6 cave-in that trapped the men is believed to have been caused by a mountain bump.