Message About Miners’ Fate Was Garbled Somehow

In stressful situations, messages often get garbled.  We saw that this week in a tragic real-life example of the “telephone game” at the Sago coal mine.

Mr. O’Dell [a rescue worker and union official] said that the rescue workers he debriefed told him that the message they sent initially was, in essence, “We found all 12 bodies. One is alive.”    But somehow that became, “We found all 12 bodies. All are alive.”

Link:  Miners Went by Book, but Time and Air Ran Out – New York Times