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US Mine Safety and Health Administration spokesperson Amy Louviere told ILN that the 25-year-old contract truck driver, identified by local media outlets as Brian Mason, received serious injuries in a 6pm incident at Triad Mining’s Freedlandville operation in Knox County when the truck he was operating traveled over a berm and went off the highwall.
“The highwall was estimated to be about 70 feet high,” she said, confirming that the worker died at a local hospital at 9.45pm Tuesday evening from his injuries.
Louviere said that Triad was under a closure order, and a federal investigation into the incident has begun.
MSHA has classified the incident as Powered Haulage.
Mason’s death is the 43rd in US coal so far in 2010.
The last one was recorded on July 29 at Consol Energy’s Loveridge longwall mine in West Virginia, when miner operator Jessie Adkins died in a rib roll incident.
