On the day of the accident, Rebecca A. Dysart, reported to work at 6:00 a.m., her normal starting time.  Richard Leatherberry, foreman, assigned Dysart, Brian Schoulte, miner, and Chris Peterman, laborer, to walk the working sections in the mine to check for any areas that needed to be scaled after they were blasted on a previous shift.  The crew was to travel down Aisle 3 to the intersection of M, cross over from crosscut M to Aisle 2, check Aisle 2, and cross over to Aisle 1.

Leatherberry instructed Barry Brinkman, loader operator, to operate the front-end loader, hauling material from the intersection of M and Aisle 3, down Aisle 2, and to the hopper.  He instructed Brinkman to blend one bucket of material piled at Aisle K for every three hauled from the M area.

Brinkman hauled sand for about 30 minutes while Dysart, Peterman, and Schoulte traveled on foot north in Aisle 2 toward the hopper when they noticed Brinkman approaching.  As Brinkman traveled north in Aisle 2 and passed near the intersection of Aisle L, Dysart, Peterman, and Schoulte flashed their cap lamp lights to alert him of their position.  Brinkman acknowledged the miners by honking the front-end loader's horn and went to the hopper to dump.

Dysart, Peterman, and Schoulte went down Aisle 2 to the intersection of Aisle L. Peterman and Schoulte walked east through crosscut L and entered into Aisle 1 but Dysart remained approximately 30 feet behind.

About 8:00 a.m., Brinkman dumped the load of sand at the hopper and began backing southbound in Aisle 2.  He looked through crosscut L and saw lights in Aisle 1.  Brinkman backed the front-end loader, turned east into crosscut L, stopped, and then turned and moved forward in Aisle 2 to get another load of sand.  When Brinkman returned, he noticed a person lying near the intersection of Aisle 2 and Aisle L.  He immediately stopped, discovered Dysart and checked her condition, then left to summon Leatherberry.  Michael Hansen, laborer, saw the front-end loader stopped, approached the area, discovered the accident, and shouted for Schoulte and Peterman's help.  He phoned for emergency medical assistance.

Emergency medical personnel arrived but Dysart was non-responsive and was pronounced dead by the Clayton County medical examiner.  Death was attributed to blunt force trauma.