COAL MINE FATALITY - On Friday May 17, 1996, about 11:45
p.m., a shift foreman was checking on a shaft sinking crew installing steel
plating, doors, and grating over a shaft on the shaft collar. The foreman
walked onto the steel structure, traveled across the steel doors over the
shaft, and as he stepped off the steel structure towards the shaft collar,
the foreman fell into a shadowed opening between the collar and the
structure. The foreman fell 140 feet to the work deck located at the shaft
bottom.
This is the 17th coal mine fatality in 1996. As of May 17 of last year
there had been 15 fatalities. This death is the second classified as SLIP
OR FALL OF PERSON in 1996.
Plan View of Shaft Opening and Steel Structure
For more information: 
MSHA's Fatal Accident Investigation Report [FTL95C17]
