IDAHO SPRINGS - They are learning skills they hope they will never use in a real life situation. Students from four schools are participating in the first ever Collegiate Mine Emergency Response Development Exercise. What they are learning is how to safely deal with mine rescues.
The importance of this program is brought home by recent mining accidents in Chile and West Virginia. On April 4, 2010, an accident at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia claimed the lives of 29 miners. It was the worst mining accident in this country in four decades.
"If something was to ever happen, we would have a better understanding of the roles that we would fill," Collin Smith, a senior on a team from the Colorado School of Mines, said. "If you prepare and are ready for things that will fluster you in the real world, when they actually happen, you're more prepared for them."
The training exercises put the teams in position to respond to simulated accidents with the Edgar Mine, which is owned by the Colorado School of Mines. Teams respond and react to simulated roof collapses, fires and injuries to miners.
Mine rescue teams from Pennsylvania State University, University of British Colombia, University of Arizona and Missouri University of Science and Technology are competing along with two teams from the Colorado School of Mines.
One of the teams from the Colorado School of Mines is an all-female mine rescue team. They are believed to be the first all-female team in the country.
"We're hoping that we'll be breaking new ground and that there's going to be a new girl mine rescue team every year," Grace Bernard, a junior at the Colorado School of Mines, said.
The training exercise program is jointly organized by the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety Training Program and the Colorado School of Mines.
"You hope you never have to use these skills, but you hope that if anything did happen you are ready to go," Bill York-Feirns, mine safety program manager for the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, said.
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