Only three weeks into the new year, Kentucky has recorded its first mining death of 2016.
Kentucky regulators say 36-year-old Nathan G. Phillips of Hopkins County died Tuesday afternoon in Western Kentucky.
Phillips was operating a continuous miner at the Dotiki Mine in Webster County, when he was pinned between the machinery and the mine wall. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
The Dotiki Mine is owned by Alliance Resource Partners. The only other fatalities in the mine were in 2010, when a roof fall killed two coal miners. State mine inspectors and investigators say they are working to determine the cause of yesterday’s accident.
