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Died with Drill Bit Clanging in
their
ears
For Whom the Drill
Bit Tolls Most of the 12 miners
probably died prematurely & unnecessarily after hearing clanging on a drill
bit, but they were too weak and dis-oriented to respond. If they could
have responded they probably would have said. “Get this damn Drill bit out of
this hole and send down some air. yet, during the next seven hours, while
waiting for the rescuers, all but one of the miners died moaning and gasping for
air that should have been pumped into the first hole drilled, but to the rescue
planners it was more important to measure the level of the gasses that were
killing the miners, than it was to Pump air into the mine to save
them. The Miner who lives
was forced to endure 7 unnecessary additional hours of gasping foul gasses while
the rescuers had the ability but apparently did not have the foresight to have a
compressor on hand to send down
fresh air through the first drilled hole.
The same seven hours of breathing foul gases apparently killed any of the
Other miners which had survived that long. Why will the Media
"Cover Up" this Gross and
Deadly Error in planning and
judgement which cost lives in this Tragedy and will cost more lives, in the
future if not corrected.
Paul E Lawrence
Nitro
Fresh air could have been pumped into that first hole Drilled. How many lives would have been saved, with seven hours of breathing fresh air????? We'll never know. But we can prepare better for next Mine Mis-hap. *** DO NOT POST ILLEGAL INFORMATION. Identifying agents is a criminal offense. Please also respect the rights of other individuals. *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. CIA Tradecraft is making it available without profit to CIA Tradecraft Yahoo! Groups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
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Dear liz:
The nation watched with horror as we learned of the 12 deaths in the mine explosion in Tallmansville, W.Va. Our hearts sank with the grief of the miners’ families, compounded by the tragically erroneous reports that most of their loved ones had survived. All of our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these men and to the men and women who worked side by side with them every day.
As we watched the tragedy unfold and learned more about the mine, our grief was coupled with anger. We learned the Sago Mine had more than 270 safety violations over the past two years. In the past year alone, the mine was cited nine times for failing to enact a proper mine ventilation plan, a key to preventing fires and explosions in the mine.
Despite a record of violations and injuries much higher than the average for coal mines of similar size, the mine’s owner paid just $24,000 in fines in the past two years—with most of the serious violations carrying a penalty of just $247 each—far from enough to force the company to change its practices.
Why so little enforcement? As The New York Times put it in an editorial this morning, “the Bush administration’s cramming of important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring about general safety in the mines.” The administration followed a similar practice at the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the agency responsible for overseeing mine safety, appointing coal industry management officials to key positions, who promoted “cooperation” over enforcement.
What’s more, the administration and the Republican-led Congress has cut inspectors and worker safety programs from MSHA at a time when the coal industry is growing and more resources are needed to keep our miners safe. The 2006 budget passed by Congress cuts $4.9 million, after adjusting for inflation, from MSHA’s 2005 budget.
And we cannot ignore the fact that workers in the Sago Mine did not have a union to back them up when they raised safety concerns. As John Bennett, whose father was killed in the mine accident, said on NBC’s Today show yesterday:
“We have no protection for our workers. We need to get the United Mine Workers back in these coal mines to protect [against] these safety violations, to protect the workers....
“Now they got to work in unsafe conditions. That’s why we got 12 dead men laying in the morgue right now, along with my father.”
When the workers who go down in the coal mines every day have no one to speak for them, when former coal company officials are responsible for enforcing worker safety laws, when companies face only a slap on the wrist for serious, repeated violations that put their workers in grave danger, tragedies like the Sago Mine explosion are inevitable. We must do everything in our power to see safety measures are strongly enforced and workers have a real right to form a union without employer harassment or interference.
What happened to these 12 miners is an unspeakable tragedy. The grief of their families is unfathomable. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone touched by this disaster.
As mine workers’ advocate Mother Jones told us, we must “pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living” to see that this kind of tragedy does not happen again.
In solidarity,
Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
P.S. If you would like to learn more about the Sago Mine disaster, here are a few resources worth a look:
The New York Times editorial, “The Sago Mine Disaster,” Jan. 5
USA Today, “Mine Had Hundreds of Violations,” Jan. 4
Today show video interview with John Bennett, Jan. 4
(Click “Governor, victim’s son discuss accident” link in video box on the right side.)Working for Change, “EXCLUSIVE: Bush Ignored Explicit Warnings in 2002 About Mine Safety,” Jan. 4
House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Democratic staff, “Lawmakers Call for Immediate Congressional Hearings into Mine Safety to Help Prevent Another Tragedy,” Jan. 4
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