Trinity Resources, headquartered in Eleanor in Putnam County, has been working on a mobile mine safety chamber for about three years, said Terry "Bruz" Hicks, chief operating officer. The device, which resembles a big steel box on bulldozer tracks, is designed to keep underground miners safe in the event of an explosion or collapse.

The piece of equipment is aptly named the Guardian Angel.

"Our motive is to create the safest possible safe house for the miners," said Pastor Jack Henry, Trinity Resources' chief executive officer.

Currently, regulations require mine safety chambers be placed within 1,000 feet of where the miners are working. But the safety chambers must be moved with another piece of equipment, and that can cause problems, Hicks said.

The current safety chambers sit on skids, and the equipment used to move a chamber can damage it when it hooks up to move the device, Hicks said.

The chambers contain oxygen cylinders to keep miners alive underground, and those cylinders can sustain damage, as can the gauges used to monitor the flow of oxygen when the equipment hooks up to the device.

But the Guardian Angel moves under its own power. The device sits on two bulldozer-like tracks that propel the chamber into the mine. The front and back of the mobile chamber can be raised or lowered nine inches to traverse inclines and declines in the mine.  

The Guardian Angel demonstrated at the mining symposium contains enough oxygen to keep 15 miners alive for up to four days. Food, first aid gear and water can be placed under the floor panels in the chamber.

It also is equipped with a toilet.

The steel box is reinforced with steel tubing and can withstand temperatures of 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit with the temperature inside the device not exceeding 90 degrees.   

Five miners can enter the device at a time, Hicks said. They move into a "purge chamber" before entering the main chamber.

The purge chamber is equipped with "purge air" that is used to force any contaminated air out of the chamber before the miners enter the main chamber, Hicks said.

All 15 miners can move through the unit in about 10 minutes, Henry said. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration's regulations stipulate that all of the miners must be able to enter the safety shelter in around 20 minutes, Hicks said.

The Guardian Angel currently meets all of the 2018 federal regulations, and the company is ready to start taking orders for the chambers.

"We're negotiating with some companies right now," Hicks said.

He would not comment on the Guardian Angel's price tag.  

The device demonstrated at the symposium is 55 inches tall and 28 feet long, but the chamber can be constructed to meet the specific needs of the mine, Hicks said.

For example, the height of the chamber can be reduced to about 30 inches if the mine ceiling is too low to accommodate the 55-inch model, he said.

The chamber is propelled by a 75-horsepower electric motor that runs off the mine's electrical system. But the designers are working on creating a chamber that operates off battery power so the miners housed in the unit can be brought out of the mine by the chamber itself, Henry said.   

The company officials plan on manufacturing the chambers at plants in Nitro and Eleanor, Hicks said, which means local workers would be utilized to construct the devices.

"We're proud that this chamber can be made in West Virginia and help create local jobs," Hicks said.

Henry said the company currently employs about 10 people in its fabrication shop in Eleanor where the prototype chamber was built. That number will probably expand by 25 to 30 people at the Eleanor and Nitro plants once orders begin flowing in, Henry said.

"And we could be employing hundreds of people if this continues to grow," he said.             

Contact writer Paul Fallon at paul.fal...@dailymail.com or 304-348-4817.