A gruesome mining accident, that led to a man's painful fatality, is the subject of a wrongful death lawsuit against the man's employer for supplying him with a machine that was "unfit for duty", as reported by CBS News.
In an accident last fall at the Shoemaker Mine in West Virginia, a man was badly mangled, and later succumbed to his injuries, after a ditch-digging machine unexpectedly moved forward over him.
C.M., 62, died on October 17, 2011. The suit was filed by his daughter and names Consol Energy Inc. as responsible. Consol, along with C.M.'s supervisor, are accused of failing to conduct an inspection of safety hazards, failing to keep the equipment in safe operable conditions and failing to be sure that the machine had emergency cut-offs.
C.M. had almost 10 years of experience as a timber man and laborer in the mines; with nearly six of those years at the Marshall County mine.
G.A.M.B., C.M.'s daughter, said that due to the negligence of the company and its supervisor, J.O., her father experienced "extreme pain and suffering, both physical and mental" before his death.
J.O. is further accused for his failure in conducting a job safety analysis or do a hazard assessment before sending in a crew the day of C.M.'s death.
The suit states that C.M. was part of a group assigned to clean up some materials that had fallen next to a main hauling line. While trying to remove the debris, the workers soon decided that some of the rocks were too large to be managed by the equipment they had been using and wanted to use a ditch digger.
That was when, according to the suit, J.O. told the men to take the machine underground – though J.O. knew that the machine did not have the proper safety devices in place. The machine lacked markings on its controls that made it "unreasonably dangerous and unfit for duty" the suit stated.
C.M. allegedly told J.O. that his training on that particular machine may have expired, to which J.O. responded by giving him an approximate 25-minute refresher course.
State mine safety inspectors determined that while C.M. was running the machine, it reached a space in a trolley wire and couldn't coast through it.
C.M. then got off the machine and put a jumper cable on the wire. As soon as C.M. made the connection between the cable and the wire the machine lunged forward and crushed him.
C.M., while "conscious and experienced significant pain and suffering", was seen with his right leg torn off, his stomach ripped open and his intestines sliding out. Within two hours he was pronounced dead at Wheeling Hospital.
Two violations were issued following the accident by the Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training: one was for failing to ensure the machine had an emergency stop switch and the other was for failing to maintain it in a safe operating condition.
The suit is seeking compensation for C.M.'s pain and suffering and medical bills. The suit further seeks damages, which followed C.M.'s death, for funeral expenses, lost wages and earning capacity.
Loosing a loved one, for any reason, is painful. What is doubly painful is loosing a loved one in a wrongful death. Contact a personal injury lawyer for help today!