get to grass

get to grass (third-person singular simple present gets to grass, present participle getting to grass, simple past got to grass, past participle gotten to grass)

1. (mining) To leave a mine and get to the surface, particularly to escape an underground disaster.
   • 1896, George Manville Fenn, Sappers and Miners; The Flood beneath the Sea, chapter 42, “Mining Matters”:

     “Come along. No fear of the water coming in, or I'd soon say let's get to grass.”

   • 1991, Larry Lankton, Cradle to Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines, chapter 2, “The Underground: Change and Continuity”, page 33:

     Men working at deep mines started work after a long and tiring descent, and near the end of their shift they held back on their effort, so they would have enough energy left to “get to grass.”

   • 2003, Tom Bliss, song “The Silverlode of Sark”, from album Downhill All the Way:

     But love was no protection in the terror and the din
     When the island gave its answer, the day the sea broke in
     I heard the shouted warning, I tried to get to grass
     But the ladders jammed with miners, there was no room to pass
     I never was a sailor but I met a sailor's death
     Ninety feet below the ocean, I drew that dying breath