{"id":92931,"date":"2019-07-16T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-coal-miner-injured-at-king-ii-near-hesperus\/"},"modified":"2019-07-16T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T18:58:00","slug":"cortez-coal-miner-injured-at-king-ii-near-hesperus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-coal-miner-injured-at-king-ii-near-hesperus\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez coal miner injured at King II near Hesperus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=ac703775-964b-4044-9e23-2e4ae6b3aa13&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"A man was injured last week while working at the King II coal mine near Hesperus.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A man was injured last week while working at the King II coal mine near Hesperus.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A 40-year-old Cortez man was seriously injured and required a helicopter transport to Denver last week while working at GCC Energy\u2019s King II coal mine near Hesperus.<\/p>\n<p>Rod Allen with Durango Fire Protection District said a report was received around midnight Wednesday that the man was injured at the mine. Ultimately, the man required an airlift to a Denver hospital, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Allen did not have further information on the incident.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/luke-morris\/contact\/organizer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A GoFundMe page identifies the injured miner<\/a> as Luke Morris. Attempts to reach the family were unsuccessful Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>According to the GoFundMe page, Morris suffered fractures to his pelvis, a broken arm and lacerations to his liver and kidney. He has worked as a coal miner for five years \u201ctirelessly to support his family,\u201d according to the site.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLuke is a loving husband, father, brother, son and friend to so many,\u201d organizers wrote. \u201cLuke will have a long road of recovery ahead, so hopefully, we can give them some peace knowing things are covered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The fundraising effort had reached $3,120 of its $100,000 goal as of Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Attempts to receive an update on Morris\u2019 condition were unsuccessful Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Mica Ward, a spokeswoman for GCC Energy, declined to go into detail about what caused the injury, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that protects a person\u2019s health information. She said GCC Energy is working with the Mine Safety and Health Administration, otherwise known as MSHA, the agency that investigates accidents at coal mines.<\/p>\n<p>A spokeswoman with MSHA declined to comment about the incident, other than to say it is under investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Ward said GCC Energy followed emergency plans and procedures to remove the man from the mine.<\/p>\n<p>A review of MSHA records of GCC Energy by <em>The Durango Herald<\/em> that date back to 2010 found there have been no serious accidents or fatalities at the mine during that time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s one of the safest mines in the country,\u201d Ward said. \u201c(This injury is) very out of character for this workforce and this mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jromeo@durangoherald.com\">jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>transported to Denver hospital<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5910,5812,6185,5737,5969,5736,5735,5741],"tags":[1424,1480,1152,28,866,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coal","category-durango-fire-protection-district","category-emergency-incident","category-headlines","category-hesperus","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","tag-coal","tag-durango-fire-protection-district","tag-emergency-incident","tag-headlines","tag-hesperus","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92931"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}