A miner injured a week ago in a welding incident at a Wyoming County coal mine has died, state and federal officials said.
Donald Workman, 58, of Gilbert, died Thursday evening, after being injured a week earlier, on July 29, according to the state Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training and the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
In a prepared statement, state officials said only that "initial reports" indicated that there was an "ignition" in the shaft at Alpha Natural Resources subsidiary Spartan Mining's Road Fork No. 51 Mine, an underground operation near Pineville. The statement said that the miner was "on the surface" at the time of the incident.
MSHA officials, in a separate statement, said that at the time of the incident, Workman and another miner were performing welding repairs on a dewatering pump located on the surface near a mine shaft. The miners were welding threaded blocks used to fasten guarding for the shaft.
"One miner heard a roaring noise and moved away from the shaft," the MSHA statement said. "The other miner was in the direct line of fire and received second and third degree burns and was transported to a medical facility."
MSHA added that the miner who was not burned reported that he saw a "large blue flame exit the shaft."
Steve Hawkins, an Alpha Natural Resources spokesman, said Workman had been employed by Spartan Mining as a maintenance foreman since 2004.
The death is the seventh U.S. coal mining fatality in 2016 and the third in West Virginia this year, according to MSHA.
Last week, MSHA noted that Road Fork No. 51 was among the mines targeted and then cited during the agency's monthly "impact inspections."
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