 This program is dedicated to the men and women working to improve health and safety in our nation's mining industry. I remember when I first went underground and they put the light on me and took me underground and got down there and the guy said turn your light off Mary Lou and I turned off my light and if you've never been underground with all the lights off you cannot comprehend darkness you just can't even imagine and I remember when I turned my light back on I was like a hyperactive kid and I was looking around trying to take everything in and it was that way in the beginning it was like you couldn't see enough because all there was of your world was where the spot shown but after you're there a while and you get comfortable in your environment then you begin to take it for granted you know and and suddenly it was like there was no other nothing else in my world but where my light was and I think that's what happens to most employees they get so comfortable and so it is that what they're doing they forget about safety and they haven't had an accident it hasn't happened to them so they can take shortcuts they can cut corners and they can get away with it instead of an army brat I'm a miners brat I was born and raised in mining and I grew up in northern Idaho the Silver Valley Silver capital of the world I went to work in the mines there I've traveled all over the Northwest working in underground mines mainly although I worked in some surface mines understand your your father was my father was a minor he worked all over he was what they call a tramp miner yeah and and there was eight of us kids and he drug us all over my only recollection of my father he died when I was 15 he was 54 and Clyde he died the oldest man I ever seen still to this day and 54 I now know is not an old man it isn't but he was so old when he died all I remember of him is he had an oxygen bottle that we kept at home and coffin and spitting up blood and as a 15 year old I had a 17 year old sister and and we'd have to bathe him and take care of him because my mother had to work when he died the youngest daughter in the house it was five girls left at home and the youngest daughter was 18 months old my dad died she's never she never knew who he was at all had no recollection of him and my only recollection of him was a sick person that you know he was a long time dying it didn't come easy it was a miserable death it's something to watch your father spit up blood and again as a 15 year old I knew he was sick but but at that time you didn't know what silicosis was you heard a word and it had no meaning to you I think it's important to anybody working in this industry know what silicosis is you know each one of us needs to take some time and to find out about it to make ourselves knowledgeable on it because there's no coming back from it there's no reversing it I was working in northern California a little gold mine the best and worst of all places I ever worked my best friend was the manager and actually we had been up in Oregon together at a underground mine there and an IMSA inspector come in and asked me about going to work for the agency and and I told Henry that and he says hey here and he filled out a piece of paper and he says here's your raise and little more benefits and I went okay I'll stay so now I'm down in California and working for Henry and Imsa comes in and the inspector says hey you ought to think about going to work for the agency and I'm I don't think so they've talked to me before and this was a real persuasive inspector he kept talking he kept talking so finally the only way I thought I was ever gonna hush him up was to tell him to give me the application so he did and now I don't know I just got to thinking about the industry about the people I loved I personally think that minors are absolutely the best people in all of the world they just are and I got to thinking about it and I thought well won't hurt I'll put my paperwork in and it had to be postmarked August 31st of that year and August 31st nervous I took it up to the post office certified it and melded off and Henry come down that afternoon and he he was always a hypertype person and he loved mining he just had such a love of mining and he come down and he and I was kind of nervous he says what's wrong what's wrong nice I sent off the application to Imsa today and he just stopped and looked at me he come right across the room and gave me a hug and he says the time is right girl you know what Clyde the time was right Henry was dead the following Monday night he got killed underground and every time I asked myself am I in the right place I hear Henry and the time was right it was right I try to tell the older minors especially they have a real responsibility because just like us raising our kids it's not what we tell our kids that they learn it's the example that they see us living by well it's the same thing if you have a man with twenty thirty years of experience and he thinks because he's been there and never been heard well he can cut corners he can he can do things and get away with it well the younger guys coming in or watching him and he's just setting an example absolutely absolutely I also one of the things that we're really looking at right now is the age bracket and it's sad to say we're seeing the majority of our fatalities and people our age why we've been there we're so comfortable we know our jobs so well nobody else is going to tell us how to do it you know we just it isn't going to happen again but when none of us likes to admit we are a little older we are a little slower most of us even a little heavier our minds I'll tell you my minds is sharp but it really isn't we don't react as quickly as we did so those are you know those are the kind of things that it's an individual responsibility that each person has to think about every day when they're out here doing that job and it's tough it's tough to get through to people to have them really take that accountability for what they're doing and I always when I'm talking to people I always ask them to be their brother's keeper to look out for somebody and they see something pointed out to them I also ask because we all have pride if somebody points something out to you that they don't feel is necessarily safe don't take offense to it but kind of step back and take a deep breath think about it maybe they're going to save your life by pointing something out I understand your brother died in mines too yes he did applied he fell down the shaft in 1974 he was 39 years old as a shaft repairman and it was tough it was hard it was a Saturday wasn't a schedule work day they asked him to come out and had some family friends come and he really didn't want to work that day but you know he was one of those guys it couldn't pass up the overtime and just be an ask in general so he went ahead and went to work and he had been told when if they completed the task that day he could go home well they'd built a staging with three by twelve's over the original shaft timbers and they had been working off of them all morning they went up and took lunch went back down after lunch and the top lander sent him down some caps the caps are 12 by 12 and he was the tallest the largest man there so when they lower them down he would set the cap up on his shoulder and then push it up into place and his helper then would block it in well they lowered that cap and he put it on his shoulder and he stepped from one compartment over into the other and all we can assume is that the additional weight it caused the staging to give way and he fell down the shaft you know working in the same valley and I used to you traveling up and down the shaft in the skip with the guys you know they always talk about well you heard about so-and-so often time someone say oh you heard about the guy that fell down the shaft and you just kind of inside you kind of tighten up maybe die a little and if they got too graphic you'd have to say that was my brother you know but it happened so quickly we never know who and when I had a friend that was just killed recently same thing same shaft he knew my brother I would have told you it never ever could have happened but it did he became too comfortable he lost respect for an open shaft he knew his job so well and not to discredit him but you lose that fear you become too comfortable and you take risk because it hasn't happened to you and it's not going to happen to you but it does it's all too real Mary Lou George continues as a federal mind inspector with the mind safety and health administration promoting safety and health awareness in the mental and non-metal mining industry