There’s something in the air in West Virginia. There always has been.
For generations, it was coal dust—thick and inescapable, coating the lungs of workers who descended into the coal mines day after day. It gave them paychecks, purpose, but ultimately, for many, it gave them disease. Black lung, or coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, darkened their airways and left them with lifelong symptoms. They would spend the rest of their days struggling with coughing fits and chest tightness as their coal-dust-covered lungs labored to breathe. It’s a slow death faced by approximately 20% of coal miners in Central Appalachia. Work, here, has always had a cost.
