[ranko]

Miners have a pretty high chance death while on the job - according to https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/osar0012.htm, the US death rate in 2007 (because that's the first figure I found) was 24.8 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, compared to 4.3 in all private industry. Sounds like a much higher "chance of failure" than most other jobs.

[the_lonely_road]

That's not hard work. That's dangerous work. They are completely different things. They didn't fail at attempting to accomplish their goal. They met an unlikely, but well understood risk, of death on the job.