Disaster Wilberg

Part II Moments of Transformation shows how information critical to risk assessment may be reconstructed and rendered invisible in writing at specific moments of transformation within the cycle. Chapter 4 describes how two different writers attempt to capture experience at one specific moment of transformation. This chapter contrasts a miner s narrative, inside of the hazardous environment he describes, with the agency s reconstruction of the accident, above and outside of the mine. When John Nagy attempts to reconstruct events in the Wilberg disaster, his account presents only a limited view of the complex viewpoints that individuals must assume to work safely in dynamic and hazardous environments. This chapter argues that writers must pay increased attention to the ways that individuals manage multiple viewpoints because agencies rely on accident narratives to determine the cause or causes of a disaster. 

In a large accident, fatalities rarely occur because of a single event. Large accidents occur because unpredictable events and uncertain outcomes interact in time and space to produce disaster. In the Wilberg fire in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah (December 19, 1984), for example, miners were 7600 feet—more than one mile—inside the mine. To escape, they needed oxygen (from self-contained breathing devices called SCSRs) they had to find exitways not blocked by previous roof falls or explosions and they had to de-... 

Blake, the sole survivor of the Wilberg fire, was inby the fire when the fire started. His handwritten report describes the sequence of decisions that saved his life as he moved from a position inby the fire to a safe position outby the disaster. 

United Mineworkers, Department of Occupational Health and Safety, (n.d.). Report on the disaster at Wilberg Mine. Emery Mitung Corp. Orangeville. Emery County, Utah. December 19, 1984. Washington, DC Author. 

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