Two Sago Miners Reportedly Commit Suicide

by James Parks, Sep 26, 2006

The tragedy of the Sago Mine disaster just gets worse.

The Associated Press (AP) reports today that two miners at Sago committed suicide in the past month. Their jobs included watching for safety hazards inside the West Virginia mine before a methane explosion killed 12 miners Jan. 2.

John Nelson Boni, whose job that day was to maintain water pumps, shot himself Saturday at his home in Volga, W.Va., and William Lee “Flea” Chisolm, the dispatcher responsible for monitoring carbon monoxide alarms and communicating with crews underground that morning, shot himself Aug. 29 at his home in Belington, W.Va., authorities said.

West Virginia and federal mine-safety agencies have not determined the cause of the Jan. 2 explosion. AP reports a spokeswomen for both agencies said both men had been interviewed and there had been no plans to talk with them again. The wire service report says Boni, who was certified as a fire boss and occasionally conducted pre-shift inspections to ensure the safety of incoming crews, told investigators he had detected low levels of methane in that area five days earlier and reported his findings to a supervisor, who was not alarmed.

AP says Chisolm told investigators that a carbon monoxide alarm had sounded about 20 minutes before the Jan. 2 explosion. Following company procedure, he alerted a crew inside the mine and asked it to verify the alarm because the system had a history of malfunctions.

Just last month the sole survivor of the blast, Randal McCloy, filed suit in a West Virginia court alleging poor safety practice by the company and others.

In a related development, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, a Bush appointee, dismissed a lawsuit by the Mine Workers (UMWA) that sought to force the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to inspect the emergency breathing devices in the nation’s coal mines following reports that they malfunctioned at Sago and in other emergencies this year that have killed 37 miners, the highest number in any full year since 2001.

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