Ben Hatfield Quotes (30 Quotes)

They felt the percussion and heard the noise. We believe they probably encountered heavy smoke, and the ventilation system was obstructed. They then did what skilled miners do.

We fully recognize the criticism that the company has received about the manner that the news was communicated to the families.

That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command center.

They repeated this process several times over a 10 minute period but the drill crew heard no response.

The families, much like the people working in the command center, are clinging to every hope.

We determined with the cooperation of state and federal agencies that we can move forward and at a quicker pace and do it safely. We believe we were overly conservative before.

We determined we could move forward at a quicker pace by rehabilitating fewer entries and doing less construction on the way in. I believe we have the smartest, most talented people in the industry working as hard as they can to get the men out safely.

It is unfortunate and we are saddened by the fact that the communication problems we experienced last night only add to the terrible tragedy.

We sincerely regret the manner in which the events unfolded this morning. In the process of being cautious, we allowed the jubilation to go on longer than it should have.

We believe the high number of violations is attributable to a significant increase in enforcement standards by the MSHA inspectors that examined the mine virtually every day.

We didn't believe there was any productive benefit of saying there could be one (victim), there could be 12. We have conflicting information.

We're not going to get into the violation history or finger pointing. That's in no one's interest at this point.

Progress has been slow. Families are clinging to every hope of survival.

While we're very disappointed by the information we have received thus far, we remain determined to continue the search so long as there is hope, and hope remains.

In the interim, certainly this week, they are being paid and we're meeting with the employees over the weekend to draw up longer-term plans. We're going to do our very level best to take care of our people.

We will push forward as quickly as we can as long as there is a shred of hope that we can get our people out safely.

We thought we had a celebration that would never end.

The foremost concern throughout this process has been that there are so many things we don't know about what went wrong. We don't want to put any more people at risk until we know answers.

The true heroes of this effort are the mine rescue teams who risk their own lives to save those of their fellow coal miners. At the darkest hour of this rescue effort, we prayed for 13 miracles. Despite our grief and despair at the loss of our 12 co-worke

We sincerely regret the manner under which events unfolded this morning. The events are a great tragedy.

We don't what went wrong and caused this explosion.

Everyone was talking about it in the parking lots, in the kitchen and everywhere. People that got the information were sharing it because that was the hot rumor.

We are clearly in the situation where we need a miracle. But miracles happen.

We all continue to push forward as hard as we can so long as there is hope.

We have no interest in getting into finger-pointing of what went on a year ago. This is a mine that operated for some significant time before my company was involved with it.

The impact of the carbon monoxide is the greatest danger.

The initial report from the rescue teams from the command center indicated multiple survivors, but that information proved to be a miscommunication.

While our independent investigation is certainly not the final word on the explosion, we are confident that the joint federal-state investigation will reach a similar conclusion. We are pleased that we can get our Sago employees back to work with the knowledge that the explosion was an unpredictable and highly unusual accident.

We had no idea what they were being told.

The only confirmed survivor is Randall McCloy, who has now been rushed to a local hospital in serious condition. The 11 remaining miners in the barricade structure were determined by the medical technicians on the rescue team to have already deceased.