Big Stone Gap, Va., Miner First Fatality Since 2004

Updated at 6:10 a.m.

Click here to link to a video report from News Channel 11's Scott Draper.

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BIG STONE GAP, Va. – Federal and state mining regulators are investigating an underground coal mine near Appalachia to learn more about a roof fall that killed a Wise County miner Tuesday morning.

David Sizemore, 61, of the Seminary community of Big Stone Gap, died about two hours after a portion of a roof in the Osaka Mining Corporation’s No. 1 mine struck him as he worked alongside another miner, said Mike Abbott, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy.

Sizemore became Virginia’s first underground coal mining fatality since October 2004 when Dennie Ray Leonard, a chief electrician, was killed outside a mine owned by Omega Mining Inc.

Tuesday’s fatality is also the first roof-fall death in Virginia in seven years. According to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, the fatality marks the third underground coal mining death in the nation this year. Five others have died in the nation’s surface mines this year, according to MSHA reports.

Abbott said the roof fall happened about 9 a.m. Tuesday. Sizemore, who spent more than three decades in the coal mines, was airlifted to Wellmont’s Holston Valley Medical Center and was pronounced dead at 11:15 a.m.

Abbott said Sizemore, a roof-bolter, was working near Marty Musick, a continuous-miner equipment operator, in a portion of the mine that already had a secured roof.

"They were standing under a supported roof where they were supposed to be," Abbott said.

The roof fall came from the right side of a coal seam or rib, he said. A portion of the roof fell out from the bolts and struck Sizemore.

"He received the full brunt of that," Abbott said.

Musick was also injured but was treated and released from Wellmont’s Lonesome Pine Hospital in Big Stone Gap, Abbott said.

Crews from the Virginia Division of Mines and the MSHA halted work at the mine until the investigation is finished.

Abbott said the 11 miners who were working Tuesday morning’s shift in the Osaka mine were interviewed Wednesday as part of the investigation. The agencies are conducting a joint investigation but will complete a report on the fatality. Sizemore’s family and Musick will receive the report before it is made public.

A mining roof specialist team is also looking at the mine and its roof plan as a routine part of the investigation, Abbott said.

He said Sizemore had worked for Cumberland Resources, the company that operates the Osaka mine, for 11 years and two months. He had worked at the Osaka mine for two years and three months.

The Osaka mine has no pattern of roof control violations, Abbott said.

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