Mining Accident

[PraiseA||ah Profile]

The miscommunication was just that. A mistake. No one was to blame and it changed nothing. I don't see how anyone can be held responsible for it. Yes, those families lost their loved ones but it was not dependent upon the mistaken report that they were still alive. Tragic and heart wrenching, yes. Cruel and intentional - no. The people who tried to rescue them are no less heros. They tried.

[CodeRed68 Profile]

What is with the Chinese and thier mining program? jeez...

Chinese Mine Accidents Kill 16 People Per Day
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/02/17/254.html

Chinese coal mine blast kills 14
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4110357.stm
coal mine accident in which 123 miners were trapped
http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2005/08/10/61139_.html
Chinese mine blast kills 48
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/41D63DA1-E4CF-4C08-B116-12335581EE4E.htm
Chinese mine blasts kill 31
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1920522.stm
Chinese mine accidents kill at least 30
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/08/mine050608.html

[Buliwyf Profile]

good grief

[ShipWreck Profile Website]

My father was a miner for 15 years. It's a tough job. My heart goes out to the families. Really thing that bothers me is that they said they were alive. turn out it was only one. I can't imagine.

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Originally posted by PraiseA||ah
The miscommunication was just that. A mistake. No one was to blame and it changed nothing. I don't see how anyone can be held responsible for it. Yes, those families lost their loved ones but it was not dependent upon the mistaken report that they were still alive. Tragic and heart wrenching, yes. Cruel and intentional - no. The people who tried to rescue them are no less heros. They tried.

Time will tell, but the question is did the news agencies rush to report without checking their facts, out of fear of being 'scooped'?
If so, they deserve to be chastised, kinda like after the 2000 election when some of them called it too soon. Free media is funny animal. By not being govt sponsored/controlled, you get a free press, but since they are slaves to ratings and advertising revenues, it winds up warping things just as much, but in a different direction.

[Stl Lunatic Profile WebsiteYIM]

On one of the TV stations they said that it was a known fact that they were alive. It took them about 30 minutes to realize they made a mistake by telling them incorrectly, it took them 3 more hours to correct there answer...the reporters didn’t jump the gun because every paper out there made the same mistake they said. Its not the fact that the rescuers didn’t do all they could do or the reporters reported too fast. Its the fact that families were prepared for the worst and they told them they were alive, they were sent into celebration only to be told there family members had actually passed away. Metaphorically they were sent from one extreme to another...they were sent straight from heaven to hell...and that is why it really makes it that much worst of a tragedy. It really hurts to know that it seams at least one soldier is killed in Iraq every day usually more, and though this is no joke loosing 12 human beings, imagine how many families have already been shattered by the war in Iraq and all of the natural and unnatural disasters that have happened over these past few years all over the world.

[cavalierlwt Profile]

I can't imagine how bad it is going from that high to that low.

[Spirit of Me Profile]

This really strikes hard here in West Virginia. EVERYONE here in WV has some family member in a mine somewhere.

My father was trapped underground for 18 hours in a roof fall. Thanks to some really great rescue workers he and six others lived many more years until they all now have died of Black Lung disease (pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis).

Many of you may say to yourself why do it? In these mountains for years there was little else.

Most of us with father coal miners have moved on to other fields due to the urging of our parents.

As a child of a parent every time you hear a mine alarm sound you shiver and cringe in fear for your parent.

I feel for these families. It's not uncommon to want to blame someone for the death of a loved one.

As for the company, there are many points to be looked at. 300 violations for a mine of that size if not unheard of. However, there are other factors that need to be examined. Most that are too detailed to mention here. Regardless this is a shame.

[Jim0322 Profile]

Take a look at that picture at the beginning of the thread and notice the fire fighter on the right. The guys is a hack. He has a "cave rescue" sticker on the side of his helmet. I am a certified instructor for the National Cave Rescue Commission; one of about 300 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. 1) you don't wear that kind of helmet caving, it is really not appropriate gear 2) cave rescue and mine rescue are about as much alike as water skiing and alpine skiing. I would never participate in mine rescue because I have had no mine rescue training. It is a completely different enviroment with very different hazards.

I am sorry that this happened. I have been on scene in quite a few cave rescues and know that communications can really get screwed up but the picture of the fire fighter with the cave rescue sticker on his helmet makes me think there may have been a lot of unqualified people on this operation.

Jim

[cavalierlwt Profile]

Maybe he just showed up to help in any way he could, ie just be a warm body. He is wearing that gear though, which makes you kinda wonder. I don't think we'll know for a while (or ever) for sure, but I've read in a few places that they think most of the miners were in their 50s, may have given up their breathing apparatus to the youngest miner, the guy that survived. I guess they had tanks or something that gave them about an hour of oxygen. When they realized they couldn't all make it, they might have decided that all their tanks together could get one guy through. If that's the case, it is an incredible act of bravery, and would explain why they had time to write notes. It's really heartbreaking to think about what they had to go through in their final conscious moments.

[Jim0322 Profile]

Originally posted by cavalierlwt
Maybe he just showed up to help in any way he could, ie just be a warm body. He is wearing that gear though, which makes you kinda wonder. I don't think we'll know for a while (or ever) for sure, but I've read in a few places that they think most of the miners were in their 50s, may have given up their breathing apparatus to the youngest miner, the guy that survived. I guess they had tanks or something that gave them about an hour of oxygen. When they realized they couldn't all make it, they might have decided that all their tanks together could get one guy through. If that's the case, it is an incredible act of bravery, and would explain why they had time to write notes. It's really heartbreaking to think about what they had to go through in their final conscious moments.

I read that at least one of them survived a good 10 hours based on notes he made that were found on his body. The rescuers did not enter the mine until 12-13 hours after the incident. I am amazed the one guy survived. Today on CNN they said he brain stem was undamaged. That doesn't say much. I hope he does not have extensive brain damage of the higher functions. He could end up severly impaired. Being exposed to CO for that long could have really destroyed his brain.

[BladeRunner Profile]

With a Grandfather that died of Rock Dust, later called Black
Lung, a father that passed away early in his life partly due
to back injuries and Black Lung I could probally say a lot
about mining. However I could never say or write things
as well this guy.
http://www.homerhickam.com/miners/

quoted from that site:
Sago Miners Memorial Remarks
by
Homer Hickam
January 15, 2006

Families of the Sago miners, Governor Manchin, Mrs. Manchin, Senator Byrd, Senator Rockefeller, West Virginians, friends, neighbors, all who have come here today to remember those brave men who have gone on before us, who ventured into the darkness but instead showed us the light, a light that shines on all West Virginians and the nation today:

It is a great honor to be here. I am accompanied by three men I grew up with, the rocket boys of Coalwood: Roy Lee Cooke, Jimmie O'Dell Carroll, and Billy Rose. My wife Linda, an Alabama girl, is here with me as well.

As this tragedy unfolded, the national media kept asking me: Who are these men? And why are they coal miners? And what kind of men would still mine the deep coal?

One answer came early after the miners were recovered. It was revealed that, as his life dwindled, Martin Toler had written this: It wasn't bad. I just went to sleep. Tell all I'll see them on the other side. I love you.

In all the books I have written, I have never captured in so few words a message so powerful or eloquent: It wasn't bad. I just went to sleep. Tell all I'll see them on the other side. I love you.

I believe Mr. Toler was writing for all of the men who were with him that day. These were obviously not ordinary men.

But what made these men so extraordinary? And how did they become the men they were? Men of honor. Men you could trust. Men who practiced a dangerous profession. Men who dug coal from beneath a jealous mountain.

Part of the answer is where they lived. Look around you. This is a place where many lessons are learned, of true things that shape people as surely as rivers carve valleys, or rain melts mountains, or currents push apart the sea. Here, miners still walk with a trudging grace to and from vast, deep mines. And in the schools, the children still learn and the teachers teach, and, in snowy white churches built on hillside cuts, the preachers still preach, and God, who we have no doubt is also a West Virginian, still does his work, too. The people endure here as they always have for they understand that God has determined that there is no joy greater than hard work, and that there is no water holier than the sweat off a man's brow.

In such a place as this, a dozen men may die, but death can never destroy how they lived their lives, or why.

As I watched the events of this tragedy unfold, I kept being reminded of Coalwood, the mining town where I grew up. Back then, I thought life in that little town was pretty ordinary, even though nearly all the men who lived there worked in the mine and, all too often, some of them died or were hurt. My grandfather lost both his legs in the Coalwood mine and lived in pain until the day he died. My father lost the sight in an eye while trying to rescue trapped miners. After that he worked in the mine for fifteen more years. He died of black lung.

When I began to write my books about growing up in West Virginia, I was surprised to discover, upon reflection, that maybe it wasn't such an ordinary place at all. I realized that in a place where maybe everybody should be afraid-after all, every day the men went off to work in a deep, dark, and dangerous coal mine- instead they had adopted a philosophy of life that consisted of these basic attitudes:

We are proud of who we are. We stand up for what we believe. We keep our families together. We trust in God but rely on ourselves.

By adhering to these simple approaches to life, they became a people who were not afraid to do what had to be done, to mine the deep coal, and to do it with integrity and honor.

The first time my dad ever took me in the mine was when I was in high school. He wanted to show me where he worked, what he did for a living. I have to confess I was pretty impressed. But what I recall most of all was what he said to me while we were down there. He put his spot of light in my face and explained to me what mining meant to him. He said, "Every day, I ride the mantrip down the main line, get out and walk back into the gob and feel the air pressure on my face. I know the mine like I know a man, can sense things about it that aren't right even when everything on paper says it is. Every day there's something that needs to be done, because men will be hurt if it isn't done, or the coal the company's promised to load won't get loaded. Coal is the life blood of this country. If we fail, the country fails."

And then he said, "There's no men in the world like miners, Sonny. They're good men, strong men. The best there is. I think no matter what you do with your life, no matter where you go or who you know, you will never know such good and strong men."

Over time, though I would meet many famous people from astronauts to actors to Presidents, I came to realize my father was right. There are no better men than coal miners. And he was right about something else, too:

If coal fails, our country fails.

The American economy rests on the back of the coal miner. We could not prosper without him. God in His wisdom provided this country with an abundance of coal, and he also gave us the American coal miner who glories in his work. A television interviewer asked me to describe work in a coal mine and I called it "beautiful." He was astonished that I would say such a thing so I went on to explain that, yes, it's hard work but, when it all comes together, it's like watching and listening to a great symphony: the continuous mining machines, the shuttle cars, the roof bolters, the ventilation brattices, the conveyor belts, all in concert, all accomplishing their great task. Yes, it is a beautiful thing to see.

There is a beauty in anything well done, and that goes for a life well lived.

How and why these men died will be studied now and in the future. Many lessons will be learned. And many other miners will live because of what is learned. This is right and proper.

But how and why these men lived, that is perhaps the more important thing to be studied. We know this much for certain: They were men who loved their families. They were men who worked hard. They were men of integrity, and honor. And they were also men who laughed and knew how to tell a good story. Of course they could. They were West Virginians!

And so we come together on this day to recall these men, and to glory in their presence among us, if only for a little while. We also come in hope that this service will help the families with their great loss and to know the honor we wish to accord them.

No matter what else might be said or done concerning these events, let us forever be reminded of who these men really were and what they believed, and who their families are, and who West Virginians are, and what we believe, too.

There are those now in the world who would turn our nation into a land of fear and the frightened. It's laughable, really. How little they understand who we are, that we are still the home of the brave. They need look no further than right here in this state for proof.

For in this place, this old place, this ancient place, this glorious and beautiful and sometimes fearsome place of mountains and mines, there still lives a people like the miners of Sago and their families, people who yet believe in the old ways, the old virtues, the old truths; who still lift their heads from the darkness to the light, and say for the nation and all the world to hear:


We are proud of who we are.
We stand up for what we believe.
We keep our families together.
We trust in God.

We do what needs to be done.

We are not afraid.

[B]

We are proud of who we are.
We stand up for what we believe.
We keep our families together.
We trust in God.

We do what needs to be done.

We are not afraid.

Very nice.

[Twister026 Profile Website]