The day I left Minnesota was the day the finally began recovering remains from the Mississippi River. It took them seven days. That’s an awful lot of heartache. And, the day before I left the land of a thousand lakes, a “seismic event” (a phrasing that was disputed by geologists but the mine owner was insistant that that was the cause) at an east-central Utah mine caused a six miners to become trapped underneath coal and rubble. No one knew if they were alive, but an immediate rescue effort ensued. I asked if they wanted me to go and was told not to worry about it and go home to DC, so I did. A week later I was in Utah.
The owner of the Utah mine is a colorful older man who would look like anyone’s grandfather. That is, until he spoke at a press conference. He came off as a little brash and unpredictable but very direct. I’ve covered several mine disasters and this was the first time I had ever seen the owner come out and conduct his own press conferences. From what I could tell he seemed to want to curry favor with the media and have them on his side. He was very accommodating and even allowed a crew and reporter inside the mine.
The next day, after a four hour flight, a two and half hour drive and another half-hour drive I was at the mountain site. (Aren’t time changes great?) I got a tour and was told I would be taking over as the site supervisor. “Uhhh…que?” Basically, it’s the point person for everything as far as assignments, schedules, video feeds, overall editorial and information flow, everything that others can’t handle. It’s a hard job and it keeps you from working on the story specifics but it’s really the most important job because without it the wheels and parts of the operation would fall of. I knew I’d serve better in the field, running around to press conferences, making calls and contacts, finding out information, talking to people – three of the six miners were Hispanic. As site supervisor I would have never had the time to do any of those things.
So that’s what I did. I ran to press conferences, I waited for family members and occasionally talked to a few in Spanish, I confirmed facts for our reporting, and conducted the occasional interview. Your days are long but they go by quickly because you are busy the entire time. I like that about the job and learn a lot about myself and what it’s like to do the basic journalistic dirty work on the ground.
On my second day there (Thursday) I was just finishing up my day around 7pm and about to drive back to Price (where the closest and dirtiest hotel I’ve ever stayed was) for dinner with my cameraman. All of a sudden we see ambulances drive past us towards the mountain. We warn the crew up at the mountain. They report back that they were headed toward the mine entrance. A few minutes later the first one passes back by them and they can see that they are working on someone in the back. A few minutes later another one comes by and they are also working on someone.
We had no idea what was going on but started hearing that the rescuers had been involved in another collapse.
I decided to follow the first ambulance from a safe distance with my cameraman. Once we reach the hospital the second ambulance arrived. The police tell us there will be a press conference soon and that we have to move because a helicopter will have to land soon. We move to the other end of the parking lot. About 20 minutes later another ambulance shows up.
The CEO of the hospital shows up to announce he’s holding a press conference in five minutes. We aren’t ready to have it live on the air but they ask me to hold my phone up and they will take the sound on the air from my phone. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hear me when I tried to tell them the news conference was starting because the programming was so loud in my phone. The desk calls me and they want me to do a “beeper” or call in and speak to Anderson Cooper on the air and tell him what the situation on the ground is. I made sure I had my facts straight and then I hear his voice introducing me.
This was the first time I had done anything on air and I apparently did ok. I described the scene and told him the facts the spokesperson had just given us – one in very serious condition, two in serious condition and perhaps up to 11 total rescuers may be brought in — and related a few details I had gathered from a friend of a family member for color.
I got off the phone with him and found our reporter and her producer had arrived. My on-air duties were over but there was plenty left to do. I stayed up for about another three hours gathering information.