PRICE — Linda Wilson will never forget watching Brandon Kimber play with his kids.
"When you saw him playing with them, he was always down on the ground with them," said Wilson, Kimber's aunt. "He loved those kids more than anything."
Kimber's love for his children and his desire to provide for them as best he could was the reason the 29-year-old man took a job at the Crandall Canyon Mine, where he was killed Aug. 16 while trying to rescue six trapped co-workers, Wilson said.
Hundreds of family members, friends, co-workers and members of the mining community packed Mitchell Funeral Home for a viewing Wednesday night to pay their respects to Kimber and his family.
Kimber's golf clubs and a dirt-bike helmet were on display at the funeral home, along with dozens of photos of happier times — Kimber playing with his kids, camping with family and friends, a vacation to Disneyland.
Several cars in the parking lot were decorated with kind words about Kimber and supportive messages to those grieving over his tragic death. "We love you, daddy!" was written on the back window of one vehicle.
Kimber's young children — daughter Bryton, 5, and twin boys Peyton and Paxton, both 4 — loved their daddy as much as he loved them, said Colleen Byrge, the grandmother of the three children's mother and Kimber's ex-wife, Kristen Kimber.
"All the time he had off, he played with his kids and spent time with them," Byrge said.
Kimber also loved his job at the mine, where he'd worked for about 3 1/2 years, and he was good at it, co-workers said.
"He was an excellent worker," fellow miner Jess Gordon said. "I'll never forget him. I'll miss his smile."
Gordon and family members said Kimber worked as foreman at the mine and was completely dedicated to his crew, so much so that he gave his life for them.
"That's the kind of guy he was," Gordon said. "He was in there because he was worried about his men. He was a foreman, and he was in there taking care of his crew."
Kimber, local coal miner Dale Black, 49, and mine safety inspector Gary Jensen, 53, were killed and six others were injured when a seismic event collapsed a section of the mine. The men were trying to reach miners Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez, who have been trapped in the mine since Aug. 6.
Byrge said one of the six men who was injured in the underground rescue attempt told family members that he was alive because of Kimber, that Kimber pushed him out of the way and fell on top of him when the walls started to cave in.
"That was Brandon," Wilson said. "He wouldn't think twice about it. He would put himself in harm's way before he would allow someone else be in harm's way. If he could do anything for others, he would, and he did."
Private funeral services for Kimber will be held today in Moab, where he was born and reared.
E-mail: jpage@desnews.com