Spokesperson Leslie Fitzwater confirmed for ILN that the victim was timberman Charles McIntire, 62, who was just a few months from marking ten years with the northern West Virginia operation.
Preliminary findings, she said, reveal that McIntire, who died at the surface of the Shoemaker complex in Marshall County, was attempting to use a jumper cable to move a ditch digger machine.
“The machine failed to coast through a gap in the trolley wire, and the victim dismounted to connect the jumper cable to the trolley wire to move the machine through the gap,” Fitzwater said.
“McIntire placed one end of the nip of the jumper cable on the energized trolley wire and then placed one end on the harp of the machine’s trolley pole. An eyewitness account indicated that when the victim placed the nip on the harp, the machine suddenly moved forward and ran over him.”
Operations at the mine have resumed and state and federal investigations into the incident are ongoing.
The fatality is the second at a Consol mine in 2011; the first occurred in February when the driver of a dozer at the nearby McElroy mine in West Virginia was trapped between his vehicle and a water truck.
McIntire’s death is also the seventh in West Virginia this year.
Shoemaker, a longwall mine which extracts from the prolific Pittsburgh coal seam, produced 3.9 million tons last year. A $US205 million upgrade to its facilities, which included a new overland and underground conveyor system, was also completed in 2010.
