By Anya Litvak

May 17, 2023 - Three mine workers were injured, one critically, in an early-morning accident Tuesday that involved supply cars and a mantrip vehicle inside Consol Energy’s Enlow Fork Mine in Pennsylvania.

All three were brought out of the mine by Consol’s safety officials through the Sparta Portal in Morris Township, where they were attended to by emergency responders.

“One was a critical patient” and was taken by helicopter to a trauma center in Pittsburgh, according to Larry Pollock, executive director of Ambulance and Chair Service.

Consol Energy Inc. 

In a statement released just before 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Consol said the worker’s injuries were “non-life-threatening.”

The company said the other two workers were taken to a local hospital and released.

“We are conducting a full-scale internal review of today’s event in order to determine the exact cause of the accident while working with all appropriate agencies,” Cecil-based Consol said in a statement.

Mantrips are rail-mounted vehicles that ferry mine workers and supplies from Enlow’s three surface portals through the already emptied portions of the mine and toward the active area. At Enlow, where longwall mining operations began in 1991, the trip can take up to 25 minutes.

The company did not say which way the workers were going, nor whether their vehicle collided with supply cars. It stressed that no one was trapped underground.

The Enlow Fork mine, which has about 480 employees, is inspected by federal safety authorities every five working days at irregular intervals, according to a report prepared by the U.S. Mine Safety & Health Administration. The report was part of an investigation of a 2019 death at the mine, caused by a coal pillar rib falling on a 25-year-old worker. 

The mine has had about a dozen worker accidents so far this year, ranging from finger injuries to a dislocated shoulder to bone fractures.

Its non-fatal injury rate has trended down in recent years and has been below the national average for seven out of the last 10 years, ending in 2021, according to the latest data available from the federal mine agency, which has launched an investigation into Tuesday’s incident.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is also investigating. Its officials “have conducted interviews with mining personnel and are currently underground continuing their investigation,” agency spokeswoman Lauren Camarda said.

Enlow Fork is one of three, sprawling underground mines that comprise Consol’s Pennsylvania Mining Complex in southwestern Pennsylvania. It is the largest underground mine complex in North America, with 2023 coal sales expected to be between 25 and 27 million tons.