Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Stay Out Stay Alive in 2005

Back in the mid-90's, several organizations involved with mining banded together and created the "Stay Out -- Stay Alive" Program to help educate the public that that mine sites (active or abandoned) are not safe playgrounds.

MSHA, OSM, the Park Service and various state agencies had seen far too many cases of kids (and older people) getting lost in old mine tunnels, drowned in water-filled quarries, buried in sliding stockpiles, getting electrocuted, falling off highwalls, fallinginto sinkjholes or getting hurt in ATV rollovers in these places. Each group had been working independently to get out the word. With the national "Stay Out -- Stay Alive" partnership, they started working together.

MSHA volunteered to be the clearinghouse for information, see http://www.msha.gov/SOSA/SOSAhome.asp

Reporting of these incidents isn't mandatory, but collected stories indicate more than 30 such deaths ares still occurring every year.

http://www.msha.gov/SOSA/previousfatalstats.asp

The count so far is 10 for 2005.