On September 5, 2017, a 20-year old plant operator with 23 weeks of experience was fatally injured at a sand and gravel mine. The victim was performing maintenance on a belt conveyor when he became entangled in the tail pulley.
Best Practices
- Establish policies and procedures for conducting specific tasks on belt conveyors.
- Before beginning any work, ensure that persons assigned to work on belt conveyors are task trained and understand the hazards associated with the work to be performed.
- Do not perform work on a belt conveyor until the power is off, locked, and tagged, and machinery components are blocked against motion.
- Never clean pulleys or idlers manually while belt conveyors are operating.
- Identify hazards around belt conveyor systems, design guarding, and securely install the guarding to ensure miners do not contact moving machine parts.
Click here for: MSHA Preliminary Report (pdf), Final Report (pdf).
On July 27, 2017, a miner was fatally injured when his light-duty truck was run over by a haul truck. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
On Friday, August 25, 2017, a 51-year-old mine examiner with 27 years of mining experience was killed when, near the transfer point with the No. 2 conveyor belt, he apparently lost his footing attempting to cross over the moving No. 1 conveyor belt. He fell onto the No. 1 belt and hit a belt crossover located approximately 10 feet outby. The victim was found beside the conveyor belt just outside the mine entrance.
On August 3, 2017, a 32-year-old miner with 6 years of mining experience was fatally crushed while he was cutting one end of a metal beam. He was dismantling a metal structure at a preparation plant when the beam fell on him.
On July 20, 2017, a miner was driving wedges into a block of granite in an attempt to break it loose. A piece of granite weighing 9 tons fell and crushed the victim against the quarry floor.
On July 25, 2017, a 28-year-old bulldozer operator with 1 year and 9 months of mining experience was fatally injured at a surface facility. The victim was operating a bulldozer, pushing material off of a refuse bank before the accident occurred. He was found lying in the bulldozer’s push path at the top of an incline near the edge of the refuse bank. The bulldozer had run over the victim and continued over the edge of the incline, coming to rest at the bottom of the embankment.
September 13, 2017 8:30 AM – 4 PM
On July 14, 2017, a part time mine employee was moving irrigation pipe by hand and was electrocuted when the pipe came in contact with high voltage transmission lines overhead.
On June 8, 2017, a truck driver was operating a Caterpillar 777F haul truck, dumping a load of gravel, when the ground at the dump point collapsed. The truck went over the edge of the dump point, overturning and landing on its roof approximately 30 feet below. The victim was transported to the hospital, where he later died of his injuries.
On March 24, 2017, the victim exited his personal flatbed truck, which was left running in 6th gear, to turn off the genset (diesel generator). Prior to ascending the steps to the diesel generator, it appears the flatbed truck moved forward and pinned him against the genset trailer. The victim was found on Monday, March 27, 2017, and pronounced dead at the scene.