In Zanesville Tuesday morning, coal miners file up to a mobile clinic for black lung disease screening.
It's a large delivery truck with a small doctor鈥檚 office built in the back. The miners wander up in ones and twos. Many are retired and they creak up and down the small staircase gingerly.
Craig Elliot is barrel chested with a salt and pepper goatee. He hit retirement about a week ago, but he gets around fine. Elliot spent 42 years mining, including more than 30 of those working with coal. He says in the early days he ran machines that didn鈥檛 have an enclosed cab.
鈥淭he fans would pick it up and blow it back in your face when we was on the coal, and you just ate a bunch of coal dust. Always dusty,鈥� Elliott says.
Now, he鈥檚 worried about shortness of breath.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, part of the CDC, runs the outreach program. Miners can get screened confidentially and then use the results to help with filing for benefits or to get a job transfer if they鈥檙e still working. Researchers at the agency, meanwhile, get data to help spot trouble areas.
Anita Wolfe heads up the mobile screening team, and she explains for years black lung disease cases were dropping.
鈥淏ut in 1999 it was like that decline hit a brick wall, and we started seeing increased disease,鈥� she says.
Researchers started to see increases in the disease nationwide, including younger miners that worked in small mines based more in Appalachia, Wolfe says.
At a small folding table Wolfe runs Elliott through a series of questions about his work history and various symptoms. Then he heads into the clinic. In addition to gathering the basics鈥攈eight, weight and blood pressure鈥攖hey take x-rays and perform breathing tests.
After he exits the clinic, Elliott explains the breath test was a little tough, but otherwise his screening went fine. Elliot and other miners will get their results in the mail in about two months. However if their tests come back positive for black lung disease, Wolfe explains there鈥檚 not much they can do clinically.
鈥淥nce you have black lung, coal miners pneumoconiosis, it never goes away鈥攜ou鈥檙e going to have it,鈥� Wolfe says. 鈥淚f you get out of the environment that has caused it, if you get out of the dust, it may not progress.鈥�
Elliott seems a little nervous at how his test might turn out. He describes watching his grandfather die.
鈥淗e died from emphysema but he had black lung,鈥� Elliott says. 鈥淎nd it鈥檚 horrible鈥攚atched him die. He was living on oxygen. Wasn鈥檛 a good sight.鈥�
But Elliot says he鈥檇 readily take the same job again. He misses the camaraderie and working with the machinery鈥攁nd of course, steady well-paid jobs for himself and others in the area. Still he admits the coal industry is receding in Ohio.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 going backwards, I think it is,鈥� Elliott says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know, I just feel with technology, they ought to be able to save it. They do every other industry with technology, I don鈥檛 know why they can鈥檛 with us.鈥�
The mobile clinic is finishing up a week-long trip through southeast Ohio in Athens on Friday.
