On February 8, 2021, a 38 year old ground man* was fatally injured when he became entangled in a fluted tail pulley while attempting to shovel under an adjacent fluted tail pulley at a limestone min in Potosi, MO with 12 employees*.
Best Practices:
- Design, install, and maintain area guards with signage and locks in addition to the physical barrier. Find more information on area guarding at https://www.msha.gov/guarding-slide-presentation-guarding-conveyor-belts-metal-and-nonmetal-mines.
- Design and maintain secure guards so miners can perform routine maintenance on belt conveyor systems without contacting moving machine parts.
- Do not perform work on a belt conveyor until the power is off, locked out and tagged, and machinery components are blocked against motion.
- Never clean pulleys or idlers manually while belt conveyors are operating.
- Establish policies and procedures for conducting specific tasks on belt conveyors.
- Ensure that people assigned to work on belt conveyors are task trained, understand the associated hazards, and demonstrate safe work procedures before beginning work.
- Ensure all new miners receive new miner training and task training.
Additional Information:
This is the third fatality reported in 2021, and the second classified as “Powered Haulage.” *(details added by safeminers.com from MSHA data)
Click here for: Preliminary Report (pdf), Final Report (pdf).