Published: May 2, 2019 |

Cargill Salt team members listen while they are briefed on the scenario they will face during the rescue contest.
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A team finished its run during the 49th Annual Southern Regional Mine Rescue Contest.
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The eight men were tethered together, moving carefully along the edge of the narrow passage. Each wears a Draeger rebreather, providing fresh air in the confined space. The light is dim, but battery-powered headlights on the team’s helmets make things a little clearer.

To one side a man lay on his back, eyes closed, in his white Tyvex coveralls. His hands grasped a sign on his chest that said, “Jack Miner 01.”

This was the beginning of a grueling 75-minute exercise at the 49th Annual Southern Regional Mine Rescue Contest at New Iberia’s SugArena. The open dirt floor was covered in a maze of canvas dividers, plastic sheeting and signs labeling obstacles, the gas content of the atmosphere or, as in the case of the worker in Tyvex, mock casualties of a mine collapse.

Even though it is a competitive simulation, the exertion is real. With temperatures rising into the 80s, the breathing apparatus and safety gear the competitors have to wear and carry makes for a hot, sweaty morning.

“Each mine is required to have at least two qualified responders,” said Brian Blanchard of Cargill Salt’s mine at Avery Island, one of the event’s organizers. “There has to be a mine rescue team within two hours of the mine, but we all have one.”

The regional competition drew teams from 11 states, as far north as Wyoming and as far west as Nevada. Five of the teams are from the salt mines in the immediate region — Cargill, Compass Minerals, Morton Salt at Weeks Island, Morton Salt from Grand Saline, Texas, and United Salt Cmpany’s mine in Hockley, Texas.

The teams compete four at a time in separate but identical mazes laid out on the SugArena floor, with judges from the Mine Safety and Health Administration watching their every move. As in real life, one mistake can end the team’s run.

“They have to check off the entire perimeter of their area,” Blanchard said. “They have to rescue all of the survivors, identify all of the victims and explore all areas of the mine. That’s a lot in 75 minutes.”

The Southern Regional Mine Rescue Contest is the longest-running regional underground metal and nonmetal mine rescue team competition in the United States. It started in 1970 following 1968’s salt mine disaster at Belle Island which claimed the lives of 21 mineworkers after a fire started in the mine shaft.

“The competition gives mine rescue teams an opportunity to test and improve their skills and preparedness to respond to any type of mine emergency,” said Jim Scialabba with Compass Minerals. “Mine rescue teams from underground mines producing salt, gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, and limestone from Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana — including our five regional underground salt mines — will compete for top honors.”

This year’s event will also honor members of the Mine Rescue Hall of Fame at the event’s awards dinner Thursday night at the Cade Community Center. Several of those honorees were participants in the very first Southern Regional, which was held at Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette 49 years ago.

Source: The Daily Iberian

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