- 17 Mine Rescue Teams from across the county competed to save miners lives
- Many mines are in rural areas and miners competing here can benefit from the real life scenarios.
- Watch the video to see what the competition looks like.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
Saving lives and keeping miners safe. I was able to witness 17 mine rescue teams from across the county put their skills to the test. I spoke to one teammate, and she told me she became a miner because, of her father.
“We’re like a family.”
Kristine Cornejo is the lead medic on the turquoise ridge mine rescue team from Nevada.
“We have to be able to think on the fly.”
Kristine has been in the mining industry for 19 years and she says her father was the main reason why, she got into rescuing.
“My dad was a miner, and he got hurt when I was a year old.”
That motivated her to keep miners safe.
Kristine and other mine rescue teams came to Havana Wednesday to a competition to show their skills when it comes to saving a miner’s life.
“The competition is basically trying to get people to understand the adrenaline and everything that goes along with if you are in rescue situation.”
Brian Thompson is a district manager for mine safety.
He says they hold competitions like this for mine rescuers to experience different real life emergency scenarios to bring back to their mines.
“The upkeep of our skills a necessity just not only for the patient’s safety but mainly our safety.”
Keeping miners safe is the top priority and Brian believes, having this competition in Havana is beneficial for the teams.
“We have a lot of mines that are in rural areas that need that extra training because like i said an extra 10-15 minutes could make the difference between someone being able to go home with their family or not be able to.”
A competition that Kristine and others learned from. But Kristine knows that she is right where she belongs despite the tragedy that happened to her father.
“After seeing him go through the trials and tribulations afterwards because he couldn’t work again, when I got in the field of mining, I decided that I wanted to be there to help someone in case an incident happened again.”
These teams will be able to take what they learned from these scenarios and bring them back to their home mines to continue to save many miners lives.
