Two US coal miners killed in June
By
Naomi Spencer
1 July 2017
Two US coal miners were killed in separate accidents on June 13 and 19, bringing to nine the number of coal miners killed on the job in the first six months of 2017. This figure surpassed the total number killed in 2016, and approaches on an annualized basis the total fatality figures of 2011 through 2013, when the US mining industry experienced a relative boom.
On June 19, a Jasper, Alabama man was killed at a mine in west Jefferson County, near Birmingham.
A preliminary report by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) states that around 6:25 p.m., pre-shift examiner Marius “Slick” Shepherd, 32, was riding a 20-ton locomotive in the Oak Grove Mine when “the locomotive lost control on a long grade, and the victim was thrown or jumped from the moving locomotive striking his head.” Shepherd received first aid at the scene before being transported to the University of Alabama-Birmingham hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:30 p.m. The locomotive operator was also injured in the accident.
Shepherd was a miner with nearly nine years’ experience and a member of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). He leaves behind a wife and two children. A cousin of Shepherd told the local newspaper, the Daily Mountain Eagle, that they came from a mining family. “Our grandfather worked in the coal mines, and our uncles worked in the coal mines. He was proud of what he did, and he enjoyed it.”
At the time of the accident, 73 miners were on shift at the mine, which employs more than 400, most of them underground.
The Oak Grove Mine, once a US Steel metallurgical mine, is operated by Oak Grove Resources, LLC, a subsidiary of Seneca Coal Resources. Seneca is a subsidiary of ERP Compliant…