MIDDLESBORO, Ky. (AP) - An underground shuttle car struck and killed a 56-year-old coal miner in Kentucky.
Jeffery Norman Sloan, of Clifton, Tennessee, was hit around 11:20 a.m. Monday morning at Tennco Energy's Toms Fork mine in Bell County in southeastern Kentucky.
It was Kentucky's first coal mining death of 2019 and the second nationally. Kentucky recorded just one coal mining death last year, in March.
Sloan had worked in coal mines for 30 years. He was taken to Pineville Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said in a news release that mining operations were halted after the death and will remain suspended during an investigation. The state Division of Mine Safety sent investigators to the scene.