Another Miner Dies

An Alabama miner at Jim Walter Resources Mine No. 4 in Brookwood has died from injuries received on the job last month, bringing the total coal mine deaths this year to 24. Twenty two coal miners died on the job in 2005. Only three coal miners had died on the job by this time last year. Five other miners have died this year in non-coal mines, according to MSHA.

Gary Jones, 57,

had no pulse and stopped breathing after the large rock struck him in the legs and knocked him backward onto a heavy-duty conveyor belt on March 29.

Jones, who had been a coal miner for more than 23 years, was assisting in the installation of chain-link-type fencing on a wall where workers were preparing to move a large piece of machinery called a longwall.

A preliminary report of the accident issued by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration issued the day after the accident contained no citations for the mine company.