Coal miner killed when beam falls in Kentucky mine, state’s fourth mine-related death of year

Miner killed by falling beam in Kentucky coal mine

HOLMES MILL, Ky. — A coal miner hit by a falling steel beam has been killed on the job, the fourth mining-related fatality of the year in Kentucky.

The Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Enforcement says the miner died Wednesday at Lone Mountain Processing’s Clover Fork Mine No. 1 at Holmes Mill in the southeastern part of the state.

Harlan County coroner Philip Bianchi says the victim was 42-year-old Jim Carmack of Barbourville.

Dick Brown, a spokesman for the state office, says coal dislodged from the mine wall and bumped a support holding up the beam.

State and federal investigators are looking into it.

Twenty-nine miners died in an explosion April 5 at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, the nation’s worst coal mining disaster in 40 years.