This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Fewer miners died in workplace accidents in 2016 than in any other year in U.S. history, but the death toll included one Utahn.
Blaine "Kirk" Linck, 53, of Salt Lake County, was killed March 8 when the dump truck he was driving went over an embankment and fell 60 feet into a pond at the Staker Parsons sand and gravel quarrymt 2080 N. Beck St.
Co-workers found him unresponsive in the water and tried to revive him, but were unsuccessful.
Linck was one of 25 miners who died on the job last year, down from the previous record best of 28 in 2015.
Sixteen of the deaths occurred in metal and nonmetal mines, a broad category that includes Kennecott's copper mine, potash operations and sand-and-gravel quarries. That is one fewer than in 2015, the previous best year in that category.
Coal-mine accidents claimed nine lives in 2016, also below the previous year's low of 12. None were in Utah. Four miners died in West Virginia, two in Kentucky and one each in Alabama, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
"While these deaths show that more needs to be done to protect our nation's miners, we have reached a new era in mine safety in the past few years," said Joseph Main, the outgoing head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
"Each year since 2009, injury rates have dropped, and the number of mining deaths and fatality rates were less than in all prior years in history except in 2010, when the Upper Big Branch mine disaster occurred," he added. "We have created a new roadmap to protect our nation's miners."