The Phone Game in Real Life

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The tragic death of 12 of 13 Miners, and the communications mixup which ensued reminds me of a somthing I learned right after becoming a volunteer firefighter in the late eighties, the phone game.
I believe we were in a communications class, and our instructor told all of us rookies to line up in a semi-circle. He had a message to deliver to the last person in line. There were between twenty and thirty of us betwwen him and the last person in line. He whispered his message, that person then whispered it to the next, and so on until the last person inline received the message.
Our instructor then asked that person to repeat the message. The instructor read the original message and confirmed it with the first person in line.

The instructor then proceeded to explain to us the vital importance in reducing uneccesary information from any communications we had while involved in a response to any call we had, and the equal importance of including unambiguous data in those comms with other firefighters and incident commanders.

That lesson also included the importance of correcting erronous reporting as soon as possible, which served our fledgling department well in the coming years. We learned from the mistakes of those who had come before us.

Here is a link relating the story:
Heartbreak in West Virginia

I hate that the miscommunication happened, but I sorely wish that the people in possession of the correct information had not waited so long.

My heart and prayers go out to the families of the miners, and to the surviving miner.