Posts Tagged ‘mine safety and health administration’
A coal truck driver killed in an October accident was driving an overloaded truck with a defective Jake brake switch, according to a federal report.
The driver, Darrell T. Seiber, 48, of Anderson County’s Devonia community also hadn’t received required miner training and wasn’t wearing a seat belt, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration report states.
Five citations were issued against National Coal Corp. of Knoxville and four citations were leveled against Cox Trucking of Wartburg in connection with the wreck.
Seiber was a recently hired contract driver with Cox Trucking.
Civil fines to be levied against the two firms haven’t been set yet, an administration spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Seiber died when his Mack truck overturned on a steep grade of a mine haul road. A Tennessee Highway Patrol report stated he had been driving too fast for road conditions.
According to the probe, “the contractor and mine operator failed to assure that defects affecting safety were corrected before the truck was put in service.”
The incident marked the first fatal accident on any coal mine property in Tennessee since 2004. It also prompted the Tuesday filing of a wrongful death lawsuit in Anderson County against National Coal Corp.
Seiber’s widow and 22-year-old son are plaintiffs in the complaint, which seeks $10 million in punitive damages and a $7 million compensatory judgment.
According to the lawsuit, the truck was overloaded, a contributing factor that constitutes “severe recklessness,” the complaint alleges.
There aren’t standards in its federal codes to cite a mine operator for overloaded trucks, Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Amy Louviere said.
According to both the investigation and lawsuit, the truck was missing a Jake brake switch. Without that switch, the brake wouldn’t engage when the accelerator pedal was released, according to the federal probe.
Both the trucking firm and National Coal were cited because Seiber, who was employed in mid-September, hadn’t received “initial miner training,” according to the investigation report.
Dan Roling, president and CEO of National Coal, had no comment Wednesday. Efforts to contact Cox Trucking for comment were unsuccessful.
Tags: tennessee highway patrol, wrongful death lawsuit, coal truck, amy louviere, mine safety and health administration
Federal officials unveiled a three-pronged strategy to combat black lung disease during a meeting Thursday at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy in Beaver.
Mining officials and medical experts say education, stricter enforcement and new regulations can curb the disease, which has been on the rise in the region and has killed some 10,000 miners in the last decade.
Thursday’s meeting was the first of four informational sessions planned by Mine Safety and Health Administration.
“There is a collective agreement that we have to fix this problem,” MSHA Director Joseph Main told a packed room that included representatives from mining companies, the United Mine Workers of America and former miners suffering from the ailment.
Tags: united mine workers, image style, documents and settings, national institute for occupational safety and health, last decade, mine safety and health administration, dust exposure, national institute for occupational safety, informational sessions
Posted in dust control | 
Tags: black lung disease, coal mine, collective agreement, documents and settings, dust exposure, excessive dust, false name, fatal diseases, image style, informational sessions, last decade, local settings, mine safety and health administration, national institute for occupational safety, national institute for occupational safety and health, occupational safety and health, pronged strategy, safety academy, united mine workers, united mine workers of america | 
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