The bad news came in late last evening, as we reported in this morning’s Gazette:
A miner was killed Wednesday evening at a Boone County coal operation, the fifth death in West Virginia’s coal industry in as many weeks.
Details were sketchy, but a spokeswoman for the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training said that a roof bolter died from injuries received at Newtown Energy’s Peerless Rachel Mine at Racine.
Here’s the information released so far by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration about the incident at Peerless Rachel, which is controlled by Patriot Coal:
At about 5:45 pm today, a miner was seriously injured when a rock fell from the roof of the mine and struck him. The miner was a roof bolter operator on the Unit 1 section of the mine. The injured miner was brought to the surface and died as a result of his injuries.
A 103j order was issued to the mine operator. District 4 personnel responded upon notification and an accident investigation is underway.
UPDATE: State officials have identified the victim as Asa Fitzpatrick, 63, of Kermit, W.Va.
This is the 5th coal-mining fatality in West Virginia is as many weeks, and while it’s the first since Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s “safety stand down” following last month’s string of deaths, it’s interesting to note that this death occurred at a mine that state mine safety director Eugene White visited for one of the governor’s “safety talks”. As The Associated Press reported at the time:
White visited Newtown Energy’s Rachel Peerless Mine in Boone County, meeting with the day shift, which was brought out early, and the evening shift, before its miners went underground Wednesday.
“Everybody was concerned,” White said, adding that while the miners had heard about some fatalities, few realized that four men had been lost in just 14 days.
Critics call such timeouts for safety publicity stunts, but White said they’re necessary because “over time, people forget.”
Counting last year’s seven mining deaths, this makes at least 21,169 coal miners killed on the job in West Virginia since they started keeping track in the 1880s. Of course, those figures don’t include the thousands of miners who died from black lung disease.