A contract employee was killed at the Stillwater Mine in Nye, prompting the company to shut down the mine's day and night shifts Monday.
The contractor was working at the 7200 west level of the mine around 1 a.m. Monday operating a bolter preparing for future development, said Heather McDowell, vice president for legal external affairs for Sibanye Stillwater, which owns the mine.
The worker came into contact with rotating machinery and was pronounced dead at the spot where he was working, McDowell said.
He was a contractor for Moran Mining of Canada.
The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration is investigating.
The company sent empty buses to pick up workers on the night shift, McDowell said. Work will resume Tuesday, and the company plans to conduct a safety briefing with all employees, she said.
"We are deeply saddened. It's just a big black cloud. It's so sad when it happened. It's a tight-knit workplace," she said.
Sibanye Stillwater owns the Stillwater Mine and the East Boulder mine near Big Timber. Those two mines are the only producers of platinum and palladium in North America
