WV Mine explostion 12 of 13 miners thought alive dead.

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Prayers for the families. But How can they screw this type of news up? They Told the families waiting that 12 of the 13 were alive then a few hours later they said there was a miss communcation and 12 had died. WTF??

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060104/ap_ ... _explosion

Last edited by KenM on 04 Jan 2006, 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree. Its beyond comprehension.

Those poor families...thinking their miner was safe only to hear the truth later.

I just feel sorry for the families.

Don't mean to sound clinical, but what may have happened is that someone overheard a rescue team member saying something like "They found 12 miners," took it to mean that they were found alive, and spread the misinfomation, by word-of-mouth and/or cell phone(s). Then the authorities had to find out what the real story was--literally, they had to distinguish noise from signal.
I think it's terrible, too, and my heart breaks for all those families who thought their loved ones were alive only to find their hopes cruelly dashed and their prayers unanswered.
Ironically, the person who recently purchased the mine has a good track record for safety and his people had apparently been making corrections of numerous long-time problems ignored by the previous owner.

That's a good point, and when watching the news on TV, a minute a go, I noticed something like that hidden away in all the emotive sensationalist crap you get with this type of report.

With most TV news these days you have to look beyond what they seem to be telling you, and figure out what they're trying to avoid telling you for the sake of a good story.

I think you'll find people affected by the miners' deaths would be offended by your description of the sympathy shown towards them as 'emotive sensationalist crap'.

Basic human decency dictates that some sensitivity needs to be exercised in reporting about incidents in which people's lives have been tragically cut short.

How horrific it must have been for the family and community to think that they were alive for a few hours, and become overcome with joy and relief, only to find out that it wasn't true. I can't even imagine it

What I also can't understand it that they realized the mistake after 20 minutes, and yet it took them 3 hours to tell the families

That's so awful.

It sounds like it was some kind of communications mixup from the rescue team. With so many people talking and overhearing and being desperate for good news, I guess I'm not too surprised. But still, I just can't imagine.

Jeremy

That's really sad that the families were told they were alive when they weren't

Ideally, the journalists should report facts, and avoid too much emotion that can distort a person's perception. Naturally, one feels sympathy for the families of those killed, but what about the rescue workers who were doing their best in dangerous conditions?

My interpretation of what happened (and correct me if I'm wrong):

1.Miners trapped underground after explosion.
2.Attempts made to free miners
3.Miners located
4.Message sent to surface via relay that is interpreted as miners located and alive.
5.Rescue coordinators wait for confirmation (as their standard procedure), but news gets out unofficially.
6.Second communication recieved from underground that all except one of the miners is dead.
7.Rescue coordinators wait for confirmation; that's to say until the casualties are above ground and at a hospital.

This would have been a very tense and stressful situation for everyone. The priority would have been the rescue operation; the relatives feelings, though important, would have taken second place. Apparently, nobody was authorised to release the initial wrongly interpreted communication about them being alive; however someone did (probably with the best of intentions). There was, also, a sytem of code used by the rescuers in communications to try to prevent their messages being intercepted, and avoid a situation like this.

In all of this, the media behaved appallingly; they took advantage of people in great emotional stress for their own personal gain. That makes me sick. It confirms my belief, after watching the way they made capital out of the lies told about our troops in Iraq, that they really could be considered by many to be the lowest form of life on earth.

Mistakes are always unfortunate by deffinition.

Why are people so angry that they got the good news of 12 survivors followed by bad news.

The 11 families of the dead got to be happy for several hours (happy is good) and they were then sad again. The outcome was unchanged and the survivors had one last hour or so to appreciate their loved ones.

I have only lost one individual close to me (my dog Sammantha had a stroke at age 18) and would have given anything to believe that she was alive for an extra hour or two.


What should I learn about this that NTs know intuitively?