Three Lost Explorers Found In West Virginia Mine

[appalachiablue]

Dec 12 (Reuters) - Three people who had been lost in a West Virginia mine for four days were found on Wednesday and brought to the surface, a state spokeswoman said.

Erica Treadway, 31, Kayla Williams, 25, and Cody Beverly, 21, were all being transported to a local hospital for treatment, said Samantha Smith of the West Virginia Office of Miners' Heath, Safety and Training.

Smith said she had no immediate information on the condition of the trio, who had been stranded inside the Rock House Powellton mine near the town of Clear Creek since they crawled through a ventilation shaft into the caverns on Saturday.

A fourth person who was with the group when they entered the mine, 43-year-old Eddie Williams, found his way out on Monday to alert authorities that his friends were missing

An explosion at a coal mine in the same area in 2010 killed 29 people in the worst U.S. mine disaster in four decades. -END-

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio and Chris Reese)

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/three-lost-explorers-found-in-west-virginia-mine/ar-BBQRJgd?ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

[Staph]

1. How is it that the reporting on this story in rural West Virginia

is being reported upon by folks in Milwaukee and Los Angeles?

[appalachiablue]

2. Headlines, stories like "3 people trapped in abandoned WVa. mine found alive"

RALEIGH CO., WV (WVVA/CNN/RNN) – Three missing people were found alive in an abandoned West Virginia coal mine Wednesday evening, multiple outlets are reporting. Kayla Williams, Erica Treadway and Cody Beverly hadn’t been seen since Saturday.

Rescuers brought them out of the Rock House Powellton mine safely Wednesday night and transported them to a local hospital for medical treatment, said Samantha Smith of the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training, Reuters reported. Smith said she didn’t have immediate information on the condition of the three. Beckley Herald, Dec. 12, 2018...
https://www.register-herald.com/cnhi_network/people-trapped-in-abandoned-west-virginia-mine-found-alive/article_e82b5c5e-a680-5e10-99ff-e3f88f743a65.html

That kind of lede explains how CNN and other national news organizations picked up the human interest story.

[Staph]

4. I understand why the national interest in the story.

It's another Timmy's lost in the well, thanks, Lassie! kind of story. But at the end of the MSN story in the original post, it states &quot Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio and Chris Reese)".

If the reporting came from the Beckley WV Register-Herald, I would expect MSN to credit that newspaper. But they gave story credit to a couple of guys thousands of miles away. It just seems weird!