When site visits become a safety issue
“Wow” is about the only word strong enough to describe the disasters that have taken place around the world in recent months. Naturally the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and China’s Yellow Sea have been making most of the headlines lately but there’s also been the earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, the flooding in Pakistan and Australia, ashes from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, and wildfires in Russia and even in our own backyard, in British Columbia, that are equally newsworthy.
These catastrophes, however, have been caused mostly by Mother Nature herself. I know that doesn’t take away from their impact but when it comes to “disasters” in the true meaning of the word, man is rarely responsible for them because quite honestly, people are usually too smart to build things that will intentionally hurt them.
Sure it can be argued that certain things like guns, chemicals or even automobiles kill and injure people every day but even those inventions weren’t designed with death in mind. It’s the people who use and abuse them that cause the accidents and nowhere, unfortunately, is this truer than on a mine site.
Given their nature, be they underground or of the open-pit variety, mines are dangerous places for workers and even more dangerous for visitors. In fact, most mine managers and superintendents I know cringe when they hear that “visitors” are coming to their site.
Try as hard as they do, safety personnel at mines have their hands full when strangers come on site. Visitors tend to wander, they touch things they shouldn’t, and probably worst of all, they don’t take warning signs seriously.
As a case in point, I was on a remote site recently where signs were posted to warn people to stay clear of an electrified fence surrounding the property. It was only charged by a couple of car batteries but nonetheless, it was live and clearly marked with a “Danger” sign.
From what I’ve already said about visitors not taking warning signs seriously, you can almost picture the rest. That’s right, one of the smart-ass visitors had to test the system and sure enough, he got zapped a little and because of that, an injury report had to be made because of a slight burn that required a couple of band-aides.
Stupid little things like that are what make safety people on mine sites hate visitors and who can blame them? Unlike most other jobs at mines, safety officers are probably the most dedicated to their roles.
Machine operators and other mine workers are safety conscious too but nobody carries everyone’s safety on their shoulders more than the Safety Officer. Some may consider their penchant for enforcing safety rules and regulations a little juvenile at times because in all honesty, some are on a bit of a power trip but overall, they’re just doing their jobs.
Site safety is becoming more important in the overall picture of mining and I bet theV-P of I.R. for the company who touched that wire on my recent trip wishes he was still wearing his earplugs because I’m sure he got and earful when he got back to the office.
Just as a final comment on safety and the importance of knowing and following the rules, those 33 Chilean miners trapped in the copper and gold mine for 21 days (at the time I wrote this) wouldn’t have survived at all if they hadn’t paid attention to their safety training and knew the whereabouts of the shelters. On a recent trip I made underground, similar shelters were pointed out and described to me in more detail than the ore deposits themselves and at the time, I thought it was a little bit of overkill on the part of our tour guide but after following the Chilean ordeal, I now see why he was so insistent that I know where the shelters were located.
Obviously I didn’t need to use them but I certainly have a new respect for them and the safety personnel at mines around the world who make sure miners, and pesky visitors, are as safe as possible.
Thanks!
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