The employee was drilling a test hole in the surface pit floor to see if the rider coal seam was under the seam they were taking. Due to the freezing and thawing of the highwall a large chunk of rock approximately 4'x2'x3' came down striking the enclosed cab of the mobile drill, ripping the cab off and striking the employee.
Lexington Coal Holdings, IncController
MSHA Controller ID: 0137221
- Fatalities
- 1
- Total incidents
- 53
- Mines on record
- 17
- Years on record
- 2017–2025
Safety benchmark
Recorded fatalities relative to other controllers with a fatal MSHA history. Percentile is computed across the 590 controllers with at least one recorded fatality.
More recorded fatalities than 0% of controllers on file.
Position when controllers are sorted by recorded fatalities.
Industry mean: 2.0 fatalities per fatal-history controller.
This controller
1
Industry mean
2
Industry median
1
Peers at similar incident volume
- Five J's LLC3fatal53 total
- Boone Trust, Samuel A.B. (Alex) Boone Trustee2fatal54 total
- Donald M March1fatal53 total
- John W Rich Jr1fatal52 total
- Lexington Coal Holdings, Incthis controller1fatal53 total
Methodology: percentile and rank computed across MSHA controllers with at least one recorded fatality. Industry mean is the average across that same population. Peers are sampled by closest total-incident count, regardless of fatality outcome.
Top causes
- FALL OF FACE/RIB/PILLAR/SIDE/HIGHWALL1 fatality
- HANDLING OF MATERIALS14 non-fatal
- SLIP OR FALL OF PERSON12 non-fatal
- POWERED HAULAGE10 non-fatal
- HANDTOOLS (NONPOWERED)6 non-fatal
- FIRE2 non-fatal
Incident timeline
2025
2 (1f)
2024
1
2023
5
2022
11
2021
4
2020
4
2019
16
2018
9
2017
1
Operators under this controller
Mines on record
- Long ForkKY
- Pontiki PlantKY
- White OakKY
- Lower Big Branch ImpoundmentWV
- Feats LoadoutWV
- North Surface MineWV
- Alloy Surface MineWV
- Mine No 1WV
- BLACK BEAR PREPARATION PLANTWV
- ROCKSPRING PLANTWV
- West Cazy Surface MineWV
- White Flame Surface MineWV
- Twilight Mtr Surface MineWV
- Red Cedar Surface MineWV
- Fork Creek Prep PlantWV
- Superior Surface MineWV
- Mine No 6WV
Fatalities under this controller
1 recordedStruck by falling object