Wounds reopened as ex-coal boss handed one year prison sentence over deadly mine explosion
Standing before a federal judge, former coal company executive Don Blankenship expressed sorrow for the families of 29 men killed in his coal mine six years ago and added, almost in the same breath, that he committed no crime.
“I just want to make the point that these men were proud coal miners. They’ve been doing it a long time. And they’d want the truth of what happened there to be known,” Blankenship said on Wednesday, drifting into his theory that an act of nature, not negligence, caused the deadly explosion in his mine.
The judge told him to stop talking about the explosion and handed down the stiffest sentence allowed for his misdemeanour conviction: one year in prison and a US$250,000 fine.
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Blankenship’s words stung for the families on hand who lost loved ones in the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, the deadliest United States mining disaster in four decades, and some of them yelled at him as he exited the courthouse into a swarm of television cameras.
He ain’t apologised to none of us ... We buried our kid because of you
Tommy Davis, who lost three family members in the 2010 tragedy and worked at the mine that day himself, started talking over the reporters and lawyers.