Article 73. Mine Safety Training Appears to be Approaching Human Limits
The recent death of twelve miners in a West Virginia coal mine shows that although we have made great strides in mine rescue training we may have reached the limits of what humans can do. Mine search and rescue teams use the latest equipment and compete in search and rescue competitive events nationally. But when a mine is too dangerous to enter by the teams as was the case in West Virginia there is nothing that can be done except to wait until conditions are safe for entry. Time ran out for twelve of the thirteen miners and only one was alive when rescuers reached them. The fact that one was alive means that all could have been saved if they had been reached in time.
A part of the rescue attempt included the lowering of a robot down a drilled shaft with remote sensing equipment to sample air quality and with a camera. The air quality in the mine proved to be unsafe for humans even after hours of trying to purge the mine of toxic gases and the camera could see nothing unusual. Larger robots could have been sent down into the mine carrying breathing tanks and communication gear. But robots can be slow moving especially over rubble from a collapsed mine roof.
Another possibility is to send trained search and rescue dogs into the mine with breathing tanks for themselves and for the trapped miners strapped on their backs. Although the sense of smell is lost to the dogs because of the breathing apparatus needed to keep them alive. They may not need the smelling sense in a mine environment which requires just following the mine tunnel. One problem is that I could not find any breathing equipment for dogs on the net but I think if none exists it can be developed.
As an added note if the mine tunnel had been completely blocked only humans using heavy equipment could have gotten to the trapped miners. In summary hours of precious time could be gained by sending monitoring equipment into the mine first using dogs then human rescuers.
