Most recently, a foreman lost his life at a US operation while attempting to attach a nylon lanyard to a moving front-end loader and transportation dolly on a highwall miner. He was crushed between the loader and the dolly.

The weekend prior on March 10, a section foreman who was operating a continuous miner died in a rib roll. The rock that struck him was more than 10 feet long, nearly four feet high and as thick as 10 inches.

On March 3, just seven days before, a third foreman was killed at a US mine while installing a canopy on a Joy 21 SC shuttlecar. While the foreman was seated in the operator’s compartment beneath the canopy, which was suspended from the roof by a cable and chain, the canopy shifted and fell onto the victim and causing fatal injuries.

Finally, on February 26, a deckhand at a coal loadout drowned. He had been assigned to measure the distance from the water surface to the bottom of empty barges at the facility before loading and, while he was wearing a flotation device, it was not designed to keep a victim’s face above water.

The fatalities represent four of the five total deaths marked in coal so far this year. Two occurred in Kentucky while one each were recorded in West Virginia and Ohio.

MSHA stressed that mines should review the best practices for safety in all of these events. All are available online or via the ILN search function.

For a printable, distributable copy of the alert, visit the MSHA web site.