Growing up along the Harlan-Letcher county line in Eastern Kentucky, Landen Morris often heard from family that he reminded them of his father.?

It wasn’t just because his slightly crooked smile or brown eyes resembled David “Bud” Morris, they told him. It was the way he talked, the way he laughed, his personality. Bud was a good person, they said, who cared about others. The 19-year-old plays the bass drum in the Morehead State University marching band, and his late father loved playing the drums in a rock band.

“I never got to really meet him personally,” Landen told the Lantern over the phone. “I feel like that process of getting to know him was a little more difficult. … Just learning to actually trust what people had to say about him, and the fact that they were all good things.”?

Landen was only 3 1/2 months old when Bud Morris was fatally injured in an underground coal mine in Harlan County in December 2005, leaving behind his mother, Stella Morris, to raise him. It was a death that federal inspectors said was preventable, in part because Bud, 29, didn’t receive proper first aid to stop bleeding after a loaded coal hauler nearly amputated both legs. The only person trained on site in emergency medical care, the mine owner, failed to provide proper aid.?

Morris’ death was part of a spate of deaths in coal mines across the country including five miners killed in an underground explosion in Harlan County in 2006. Stella Morris and the other widows did not grieve in silence. They joined the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) at the Kentucky Capitol to push for stronger safety protections.?

That intense lobbying effort led to Kentucky lawmakers in 2007 unanimously approving a number of mine safety protections that went beyond federal rules.??

One protection was put in place because of what happened to Bud Morris, said Tony Oppegard, a former mine inspector and attorney who helped write the law. The legislature required at least two mine emergency technicians (METs), or miners trained to provide medical care and stabilize a miner’s condition, on each mining shift. If one MET was unable to help, the new law assured that a backup MET would be there.?

Now, nearly two decades after losing Bud, Stella, joined by Landen, is speaking out again because Kentucky miners are at risk of losing that extra MET. The House last month approved a bill that would end the requirement for a backup MET on shifts with 10 or fewer miners.?

The sponsor of House Bill 196, Rep. John Blanton, R-Saylersville, who represents Knott, Magoffin and part of Pike County, has argued small mines are being temporarily shut down by not having two METs available on site, hurting productivity and impacting miners’ paychecks. Blanton’s HB 196 awaits action by the Senate.

An operator of small surface mines in Eastern Kentucky told the Lantern he doesn’t want to endanger miners but that having one MET on site is sufficient coupled with the first aid training his miners receive. Oppegard, the former mine safety inspector, disagrees, saying the extensive emergency medical training that METs receive goes well beyond first aid training.?

‘I just feel like they’re doing miners a disservice’

Stella remembers Dec. 30, 2005 was the last working day of the year for Bud at Mine No. 3 with H & D Mining Inc. She was getting ready to take a shower and go to her job when she got a call from the mine saying Bud was being taken to the hospital. Bud’s legs were cut off, the caller said.

By the time she got to the hospital, Bud was gone. She remembers the months after Morris’ death as a bad dream she couldn’t wake up from.?

“I had a 3 1/2 month old son, and I would look at him for my strength to carry on through the day, because part of me wanted to go on and be with Bud,” Stella said. “But I would look at my son knowing that he had lost his dad. I couldn’t make him lose his mom.”?

She’d also replay in her mind the decisions made by miners that day when Bud died — why they didn’t elevate his body to mitigate the bleeding, or why the only mine emergency technician on site didn’t instruct other miners on how to help Bud.

According to a federal mine fatality report, Morris, a shuttle car operator, died from “near amputating injuries” to his legs when he was struck from behind by a loaded coal hauler. His left leg was severed “17 inches above the heel.”?

The report states the mine emergency technician at the mine did not provide Morris with any first aid as he continued to bleed, instead telling miners to “get him out of here.” A supervisor, who was supposed to receive first aid training but had not yet done so, wrapped cravat bandages around Morris’ knees.

Outside the mine while waiting for an ambulance, miners had “applied two pieces of rope to each leg above the knee” in an attempt to stop the bleeding, according to the report. Miners didn’t apply dressings or tourniquets to the injury, nor were pressure points used to mitigate the bleeding. A paramedic who treated Morris said there would have been “a very different outcome” if basic first aid training had been implemented, according to the report.?

The lone mine emergency technician at the mine had “panicked,” the acting director of Kentucky’s mine safety office told the Louisville Courier-Journal in a Feb. 15, 2008 article.?

Stella’s takeaway: “Just because you have a title don’t mean you’re going to do what you should do when it comes down to things like that. If we would have had someone else, just one other miner trained to do what Bud needed, he may still be with us today.”?

Stella filed suit against H&D Mining Inc. but received no compensation from the coal mining company.

When Landen was growing up, she’d tell him how much his dad loved him and that he was in heaven.?Stella didn’t sit down with Landen and share some of the details of what had happened to Bud until her son was about 10 years old.?

“My son would just lay and cry for his dad, and it was like, ‘He knew his dad but he didn’t know his dad,’ And it was a struggle,” Stella said. “I’m very proud of my son for being the tough kid that he is. I just thought it was a different life for him than what he would have had had he had his dad growing up.”?

Landen told the Lantern he didn’t look at the federal mine fatality report detailing how his father died until last month. He worries that if HB 196 becomes law other injured miners will die like his father for lack of trained help. Ending a requirement that could “save someone’s life one day is, without a better term, stupid,” Landen said. “I just feel like they’re doing miners a disservice.”?

Changes in Kentucky’s coal industry

Both proponents and critics of HB 196 recognize the significant decline of Kentucky’s coal industry, particularly in Eastern Kentucky, in the nearly two decades since Bud’s death.?

The market pressures of competitive natural gas prices along with cheaper coal produced elsewhere decreased demand for Appalachian coal, while mines became more mechanized and automated. The number of active mines and miners in Kentucky have steadily dropped.

Blanton, the sponsor of HB 196, has argued that fewer and smaller coal mines are operating now in Eastern Kentucky. Some of those smaller operators asked him for the change. He told the Lantern he wants to cause no harm to miners, only keep them working.?

“I don’t want to cause consternation for them, by no means. I just want to make sure that our mines are able to stay operational, that we do so in a safe manner,” Blanton said. “I’m simply trying to make a tweak to it so that mines can stay operational.”

According to the state’s 2023 annual mine safety report, 53 licensed mines — out of 158 total — had 10 or fewer employees. Those small mines accounted for 267 of the 4,766 total employees counted in the report.?

When asked about small mining operations that have been impacted by the MET requirement, Blanton pointed to former Pikeville Mayor Frank Justice II who operates a few small surface mines in Eastern Kentucky.?

Justice in a phone interview said it’s been difficult to have two METs on site for his highwall mining operations, particularly overnight shifts, staffed with three or four people. Highwall mining is a technique in which machinery is used to extract coal from an unmined wall of excavated earth.?

“It’s a big burden to keep two METs on there, especially when guys already got all their first aid training,” Justice said. “What happened to Mr. Morris is certainly a tragedy, but I’ve got confidence in my guys’ ability to handle situations.”?

Justice said in the past when he has had only one MET available, he has hired emergency medical technicians from local fire departments to stay on site while his miners operate. He said he pays his certified METs a dollar more per hour, but he also suggested some of his miners don’t want the responsibility of being a MET.?

“Anytime you ask for something like this, it’s controversial of course. I know that,” Justice said.

Oppegard, the attorney who helped write the 2007 law, said that while the industry has declined, the need for a backup MET at all mine sites has not.?

The free training required to become certified as a MET takes at least 40 hours and includes learning about cardiac emergencies, muscular and skeletal injuries and bleeding and shock. An exam and annual training also are required.?

The industry’s decline has coincided with the disappearance of organized labor in Kentucky mines. The last unionized Kentucky coal mine closed at the end of 2014. The United Mine Workers of America union has previously opposed bills that would reduce the required number of METs for small coal operations.?

In 2009, UMWA President Cecil Roberts wrote a letter to the editor in part condemning a Kentucky bill that would have reduced the number of required METs from two to one for mine shifts with 18 or fewer workers. Roberts wrote then that “supporters of these attacks on miners’ safety say they are taking these steps to help small mine operators.”?

“One thing you can say about these folks: At least they aren’t trying to hide the truth of their greed. They are willing to be quite upfront about their desire to put profits and production ahead of safety in Kentucky coal mines,” Roberts wrote.?

The UMWA was neutral on a similar Kentucky bill last year to reduce the number of METs, and Blanton has said the UMWA is neutral on this year’s bill as well. A representative with the national UMWA office didn’t respond to emails requesting an interview about the union’s position on this year’s bill.

In a recent interview, Steve Earle, a former UMWA lobbyist who helped push for the original requirement for two METs and current vice president for the UMWA district representing Western Kentucky, spoke personally about his experience working with Stella and other widows to pass the 2007 mine safety law.?

The late Democratic Rep. Brent Yonts of Muhlenberg County carried the mine safety bill in 2007; it passed both legislative chambers unanimously.

“I was speaking at a Democratic function. I said, ‘Because of the hard work that Rep. Yonts did … women have husbands and children have fathers.’ And I was convinced then, and I’m convinced now, that that legislation saved miners’ lives,” Earle said.?

Earle, speaking to the Associated Press in 2007, said the mine safety law showed what determined, passionate people like Stella and the other widows can do “when they have right on their side.” Earle told the Lantern he still believes that.?

“They did have right on their side. They were very effective,” Earle said. “Every mining law ever written on paper was written with the blood of dead miners. It always took a disaster to get the laws changed.”?

A coal miner’s son builds a new future

Landen says he has a lot of respect for his many neighbors and high school classmates who work in mining. He believes coal mining — an occupation that’s taxing and difficult for a number of reasons — is an integral part of his mountain community.

He picked a different path, enrolling at Morehead State where he hopes to become a high school English teacher. He remembers writing an essay about the epic poem “Beowulf” in high school, being fascinated by the Old English syntax. He doesn’t know what his future holds or whether he’ll stay in Eastern Kentucky but he hopes to inspire and help others.?

As for the father he never got to know in person, he believes Bud would be proud of him.?

“I’m on the path to actually doing something else than what’s usually expected in our little town. Because not many people do go to college here, let alone teach,” Landen said. “I feel like he would just be really, really proud of me, that I’m carrying on that dream and that I’m actually chasing it, rather than falling into something that I wouldn’t enjoy.”