The West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training reported an electrician died in a fatal accident Feb. 6 in West Virginia.
According to a news release, the incident occurred at Wolf Run Mining LLC's Sentinel mine in Barbour County, W.Va. Coal miner Leonard Griffith, 52, of Valley Bend, was struck by a coal rib roll while working on a continuous mining machine at the time of the incident.
The incident marks as the first coal mine fatality for the year, and inspectors with the state agency are conducting an investigation as the mine is currently idled.
Wolf Run is a subsidiary of Arch Coal Inc. The Sentinel mine produced roughly 1.5 million tons of coal in 2017, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration's data.
After years of steady decline, the U.S. coal industry saw its rate of fatalities jump significantly in 2017 over the previous year.
