Black Lung Disease Access

The Air Down There: A Miner's Story on Developing Black Lung

"It’s just 'miner’s asthma,' El," his father used to say between ragged coughs. "The price of a steady paycheck." black lung disease

He remembered the shift in the mines ten years ago. The "good coal" was mostly gone, and they had started cutting into the hard sandstone to reach the thinner seams. The machines grew louder, more powerful, pulverizing the rock into silica dust—a "silent killer" twenty times more toxic than coal itself. No one told them the new dust was different. They were "well trained" on respirators, but in the heat and the hurry of the shift, the masks often felt like they were just in the way. The Air Down There: A Miner's Story on