Every month, Miners’ Colfax Medical Center brings its health screening truck to rural areas of New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. They recently came to Kirtland, New Mexico, just outside Farmington, where the Navajo Transitional Energy Company operates a mine.
Active and retired coal miners were screened for black lung, a disease from inhaling coal silica particles.
Daniel Turnage from Positive Nature Homecare in Farmington was checking people in and helping them apply for benefits. He explains that inhaling coal dust impairs miners’ ability to breathe for life.
“When you're digging into the ground, and you're breaking up the rock. That releases the silica dust into the air. That's what goes into your lungs, and it causes scars,” said Turnage.
Miners’ Colfax Medical Center will bring their mobile truck to Gallup, New Mexico, in March, where they'll be screening Navajo miners, many of whom have faced barriers in accessing federal benefits for black lung patients.
This story is part of Voices From the Edge of the Colorado Plateau. Voices is a reporting collaboration between KSUT Public Radio and KSJD Community Radio. It seeks to cover underrepresented communities in the Four Corners. The multi-year project will cover Native, Indigenous, Latino/Latina, and other communities across southwest Colorado.
Explore more Voices stories on the KSUT website.