Trapped miners alive (oop did I said alive, meant dead)

[habernac]

Terrible......I can't believe they would be so irresponsible. Listening to news on the radio this morning, before midnight, guys like Geraldo Rivera were cryng tears of joy when they heard the news....only to be totally crushed 3 hours later.

[greyshep]

That is brutal.

I cant believe the media could screw something like this up so badly.

I woke up this morning and was happy to see the positive headline and story in the herald as well. Then on my way to work I hear on the radio that instead of 12 survivors, there is 12 dead and 1 in critical condition.

Just horrible.

[jam26]

I don't believe the media is to blame. It's not the media that told the families the miners were alive, it was a mining official. They screwed up big-time, the media simply reported what was taking place.

[Cowperson]

Worse . . . . the clarification seems to have happened after the publishing deadline of a lot of newspapers.

The SUN, for one, has gigantic front page headlines about 13 Saved Miners.

Okay, actually that's not "worse" than hearing they're dead but you get the idea.

Cowperson

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Worse . . . . the clarification seems to have happened after the publishing deadline of a lot of newspapers.

The SUN, for one, has gigantic front page headlines about 13 Saved Miners.

Okay, actually that's not "worse" than hearing they're dead but you get the idea.

Cowperson

I was so happy to read in the Herald this morning that the miners were saved. Then I saw on TV that it was not true. They were comparing it to the "Dewey defeats Truman" headline in the past. Very sad.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by jam26

I don't believe the media is to blame. It's not the media that told the families the miners were alive, it was a mining official. They screwed up big-time, the media simply reported what was taking place.

agreed. Too bad a lot of outlets didn't use their "stop the presses" button last night though.

[jam26]

I was glued to the TV around midnight EST last night as it appeared the miners had survived. I waited up as long as I could, enthralled with the interviews with families who said they were told the miners were going to be brought straight to the church to see them.
I was shocked to turn on the TV this morning to see the headline that only one had survived. I can't imagine what those families went through.
The governor and mining officials were aware for nearly three hours that the families were celebrating nearby based on a false report from someone who was at the site. It's appalling they did nothing to curtail this for so long.

[RougeUnderoos]

I watched much of it happen live last night and it was a pretty screwy affair.

The crazy thing was that after the "wrong announcement" they had a couple hours of celebrating while the mining people (according to the CEO) knew they had made a mistake but they still didn't know how many survivors there were so they couldn't say "wrong, only some of them survived" because they didn't know for sure what was going on down there.

I'm sure it'll all come out in the wash, but last night they were blaming it on a simple miscommunication with the rescuers.

Anderson Cooper was harassing some poor kids last night. Some locals, a boy and a girl about 10 and 8 were there with their mom who had brought them down for the big "yay, they are alive" scene. Mom was pretty ****ed about the whole thing but Anderson was more interested in the kids. "You look upset", he said and then jammed the microphone in their face.

As for the Herald... weird thing. The subscription paper is wrong with the "they are alive" thing but the paper on the stand at Safeway says "joy turns to sorrow, only 1 alive..."

[ken0042]

I'm pretty sure that on 9/11 the Herald had it on the front page of the daily paper by about 11:00. I guess it's all a matter of how much money they are willing to spend to correct a mistake.

[Cowperson]

All newspapers have a series of copy and publishing deadlines through an evening and the dramatic change in the basic premise of the story seems to have intersected that moment perfectly.

Some editions will have already been sent out to far flung places as the news suddenly changed. The later editions would have had the change but it would have been too late to grab the ones already gone.

As I said above, it seems obvious the dramatic change came at about the worse possible moment in the publishing cycle for many papers.

You see this in simpler fare when you might get an edition of the Herald without a Flames story from the west coast, or one with the story but no quotes and later, one with the story AND quotes. All from the same evening.

Cowperson

[icarus]

Having seen Munich the other night, I find this is reminiscent of the initial reported news that all the Israeli athletes had been safely rescued.

[snappyk]

I can't believe that they came out with that news that they were all alive except the one that they found earlier, that was the last news that I saw when I went to bed last night, pretty shocking to hear about all the deaths this morning and watching the CEO have to try to explain what had happened.

[Displaced Flames fan]

The guy who survived, if he pulls through, is going to feel guilty for the rest of his life for being the only one who lived.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I'm pretty sure that on 9/11 the Herald had it on the front page of the daily paper by about 11:00. I guess it's all a matter of how much money they are willing to spend to correct a mistake.

If I recall they actually put out a special edition that day. In fact, I think they were giving them away free downtown.

[browna]

Originally Posted by Displaced Flames fan

The guy who survived, if he pulls through, is going to feel guilty for the rest of his life for being the only one who lived.

?
It will haunt him, but feeling guilty or selfish?

From what I read, he's quite a bit younger then the others. Him and all the deceased had masks and were behind the special saftey blanket to help prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, so they were all alive for a while and followed procedure. Him being younger (and likely less crap in his lungs then 50 yr old life long miners) was what saved him.

As for the paper, I remember the Hearld being dropped off in paper boxes around midnight downtown when I lived down there a few years back.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Yeah, it's fairly common for disaster survivors to have feelings of guilt for making it while their counterparts did not. It doesn't make sense, but it does happen quite often.

[duncan]

from what I hae read, this mine was a nightmare to work at.

273 safety violations over the past year, including several for failing to provide adequate safeguards to prevent collapses, such as screening and roofbolts, and inadequate systems for venting gases (especially highly explosive methane gas). On December 5th a cave in occured, the 20th that year, in which 100 feet of roof dropped. Another concern, prior to the tragedy, was the failure to remove a build up of coal dust, and to properly insulate wires. The Mine Safety and Health Administration felt the owners showed "indifference or an extreme lack of care." The number of days lost to injury at this mine, was double the national average last year.

[Otto-matic]

Hatfield said it was apparent that the miners, who were found 13,000 feet within the mine, remained alive after the explosion of unknown origin that began their ordeal. They had built a "rough barricade structure," he said, and had donned their self-contained breathing apparatuses. The devices held one hour of oxygen each.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/04/min...wed/index.html

[the_only_turek_fan]

Horrible thing to happen.

I cant imagine what their families are going through. First being told they are alive, and then being told they are dead.

[duncan]

Again the manager shows a lack of knowledge of the situation. MSA cannisters hold 2216 PSI of breathable air, approximately 50-60 minutes, if they are not active. With the increased breathing that stress alone causes, they would drop to 40-45 minutes. Considering they were labouring at creating a roof support, the tanks probably lasted 25-30 minutes. Factors such as age (9 of the 13 were also between 50 and 61), health (10 had worked in mines for years, so their lung fitness probably wasn't good), apparatus training (with a saftey record like their's- unlikely), and the ability to get a positive mask seal also affect service life

The mine I worked in, had a solid working relationship between union and company, and maintained a great safety record. They also had one of North America's best Mine Rescue teams. There were three elevators out of the mine, allowing for emergency exits. Weekly tests were done for methane pockets and gas build-ups, and 14 foot roof bolts were installed with signal caps to announce shifts in the rock foundation. Both sides took pride in the low lost time to injury number, and that only two deaths had occured in 40 years, both of which were because of employee error, not a safety fault, or cave-in.