Yesterday, a letter Randall McCloy, the sole survivor of January’s Sago Mine disaster, wrote to the families of the other miners was released public. In it, he says at least four of the emergency breathing devices the miners carried didn’t work. Here’s a link to the story and a link to the letter itself. Here’s what he says about the emergency breathing devices (the miners called them “rescuers”:
This hit the news yesterday afternoon responses to it are coming in, including one from the company which made the devices. The devices were tested regularly. The company is saying the miners may have used them improperly or not realized they were working. On the other hand, I also heard on the morning news that they’ve had problems with them before. The news also said the miners were to test the devices every time they prepared to enter the mine.
It’s early, and I don’t know what to say. I know people get complacent about emergency equipment. I’ve never tested my fire extinguisher, and the only reason I know my smoke detector works is because my cooking set it off recently. I can see people not bothering with fully checking their rescuers.
On the other hand, these are devices intended to be used in an emergency, in a situation where people may confused or not thinking clearly. Shouldn’t it be obvious whether a device intended to save someone’s life is working? I just hope this accident and the others that have happened since then will bring about some changes in mine safety.
We had escape devices similar to this in the Navy. Ours provided only a limited amount of oxygen - just enough to get to the weather decks of the ship in case of a fire.
Scrupulous attention was paid to the shelf life of these devices. In addition, because there was an assumption that some of these devices would fail, redundant devices were scattered all over the place.
You cannot just abandon these reasonable precautions even if you have assurances that a better device has been invented. Leave that better device in a mine for the better part of a decade, and it won’t be such a great device anymore.
If something is a survival-critical piece of equipment, and it’s any more complicated than a hammer, then multiple backups are the order of the day. I’m going to hazard a guess that these ‘rescuers’ are on a par with the O2 masks you get in airliners - they are intended to provide reassurance, and maybe save some lives in certain emergency scenarios, rather than to guarantee x minutes of extra life for everyone. Otherwise the miners would have been issued with something more likeSCUBA sets or the respirators firemen use, rather than these things.
Pretty horrible to have the things fail on you when you need them most, but then hard hats fail to protect you from a steel beam dropped on your head - doesn’t mean they’re not worth carrying.
I may not get another chance to comment on anything- I can’t afford the fee, and other considerations- so I’ll try to explain from the miners’ viewpoint.
My father and many of my relatives either are or were coal miners. They usually work very long days and stretches of days, and with the hard labor and all coupled with the urge (by the bosses) to work more, to mine more coal in less time; time is money.
This fatigue joins with complacency- there hasn’t been an accident at this mine recently, who’s expecting one?
The miners grab their gear every day, and unless the safety bosses are watching carefully, maintenance chacks are overlooked.
All this together provides the environment for disaster. You can have regulations out the ass; if they are not followed you can blame someone afterward. This does not undo the mistake, it just feeds the attorneys.
I’m just saying there’s no easy solution, and the ultimate solution will be left to the individual miner: does he feel lucky?