The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 70/No. 31           August 21, 2006  
 
 
Serious injuries increase
along with deaths in mines
(feature article)
 
BY CINDY JAQUITH  
PITTSBURGH—Around the same time the 37th coal miner was killed on the job in the United States, a number of miners were injured in a series of accidents in the northern Appalachia region.

Jermey Heckler was killed at Carter Roag’s Star Bridge preparation plant in Randolph County, West Virginia, when a tire he was working on exploded July 30 (for more details see article in this issue).

Meanwhile, Consol Energy, the largest underground mining company in the country, reported three serious accidents in northern Appalachia where workers were taken to a hospital, two suffering from burns.

At the company’s Blacksville No. 2 Mine, a union operation located on the Pennsylvania/West Virginia border, three miners were injured July 20 in a flash fire caused by a methane explosion when they were welding underground. Ninety miners working at the time were evacuated, according to the Observer-Reporter.

Within two weeks there were two additional serious accidents at the Bailey and Enlow Fork mines, which are located alongside each other in Greene County, Pennsylvania. These mines have been among the top coal-producing facilities in the country for a number of years. Both are nonunion.

On July 25, at Enlow Fork mine, Jerry Layton’s arm was severed when a large chain that moves coal on the longwall machine broke. Surgeons worked nine hours to reattach his arm, TV Channel 4 in Pittsburgh reported.

Two miners were injured at the Bailey mine on August 1. William Cox received electrical shocks while working on a battery charger for a scoop, a machine used for moving supplies underground. A company spokesman said that “as a precaution he was lifeflighted to Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.” The shock caused a burn on his left hand. The hospital listed him in critical condition. Cox has worked for Bailey for just over one year. His partner, a new miner, was also taken to the hospital after he came to Cox’s aid.

A Bailey miner, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution by the boss, told the Militant that the production crew was taken out of the active mining section where the accident occurred before inspectors came in. The August 3 Herald-Standard, however, reported that “the incident occurred in an isolated part of the mine and did not impact mining operations.”

“Workers are disappointed with the unsafe practices the company uses,” the Bailey miner said. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) said Bailey’s accident rate is around the average for a mine of its type. However, about a third of the injuries affect contractors, workers who are not employed by Consol but by contracting services that pay the miners less.

Jones Fork, a Consol mine in Kentucky, was involved in an incident around faulty mine seals shortly after the May 20 explosion at the Darby Mine No. 1 in Harlan County, Kentucky, where five miners were killed. Miners told the Militant there that seals of Omega block that could not withstand the blast caused some of these deaths. MSHA said the Jones Fork E-3 Mine was evacuated and sealed June 1 after an underground seal was breached, according to the Courier-Journal, a daily published in Louisville, Kentucky.
 
 
Related articles:
Coal bosses, gov’t in Kentucky use drug testing to blame miners for lack of job safety
Kentucky, W. Virginia miners snap up ‘Militant’
No to drug testing! Unionize the mines!  
 
 
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