At least one person who is a working coal miner and who holds a valid certificate as an emergency medical services provider issued by the Commissioner of the Department of Health shall be located so as to be available for duty at each mine when miners are working at that mine. Such emergency medical services providers shall be utilized in sufficient numbers to assure that workers in any mine location can be reached by them within such reasonable time as is determined by the Chief. Emergency medical services providers shall have available to them at all times the necessary equipment, as specified by the Chief, for prompt response to emergencies. In the event that at any time there is at any mine an insufficient number of qualified miners volunteering to serve as emergency medical services providers as provided for in this section, the operator may elect to utilize the services of first aid trainees, in such numbers as the Chief determines to be appropriate. Telephone or equivalent facilities shall be installed to provide two-way voice communication between the emergency medical services providers and medical personnel outside the mine.

History

1977, c. 679, § 45.1-101.1; 1978, c. 94; 1994, c. 28; 2015, cc. 502, 503.