As of April 1, 2025, 2,201 injuries were reported to MSHA since October 1, 2024. Fourteen were fatal injuries. For the remaining injuries, 1,523 were non-fatal and resulted in days lost or restricted duty (NFDL), 27 resulted in a permanent disability, and 637 resulted in no days lost or restricted duty. – MSHA
Click here for: MSHA Alert (pdf)
In the last six months, 11 miners received injuries due to electric arc flashes.
Click here for MSHA Alert (pdf).
Stop Powered Haulage Accidents: Stay Alert! Stay Alive!
Fatalities and accidents involving mobile equipment: shuttle cars, scoops, locomotives, front end loaders, haulage equipment, service and pickup trucks continue to occur at a disproportionate high rate. [MSHA]
Some recent accidents occurred when vehicles flipped over backwards, rolled over, and tipped over on their sides. Miners were operating haul trucks, excavators, bulldozers, front end loaders, and service trucks while working or traveling near the edge of dump sites, elevated roadways, embankments, ponds, and excavations.
Contributing factors included the non-use or unbuckling of seat belts; jumping from vehicles; brake failure; distracted driving; loss of vehicle control; traveling or working too close to unconsolidated roadways; inadequate berms; pushing through berms; and failure to perform workplace examinations. [MSHA]
The National Fire Protection Association has its usual warnings and safety materials available here this year, but they are even more relevant this year. The public display in my town and many others are canceled which may motivate even more people to create their own. The usual gang of fools in the emergency room each year is bad enough, but with extra precautions and in some case extra burdens on emergency and healthcare professionals just isn’t needed.
Find a great video and printable materials here.
On June 3, 2019, a railcar exploded when incompatible materials stored inside the car reacted and approximately 20,000 gallons of liquid waste derived fuel – fuel derived from hazardous waste – spewed from the railcar for 34 seconds. The eruption sent waste fuel several hundred feet into the air and ripped the manway hatch from the railcar. The hatch came to rest approximately 370 yards from the railcar. Droplets of waste fuel traveled more than 1/3 of a mile, landing on buildings, structures and vehicles near the facility. Agitators in several tanks were not maintained in functional condition. The facility was blending and storing incoming loads of waste fuel in railcars. A system of analysis was not in place to ensure compatibility of the blended waste fuel.
Best Practices:
Click here pdf of alert.
On June 17, 2019, a front-end loader backed over a highwall, and the fall projected material from the loader bucket through the windshield. The operator was able to climb out of the cab and only suffered minor injuries. The operator was wearing a seat belt.
Best Practices:
A miner was trying to determine why clay was not flowing properly by examining a chute that discharged into a screw conveyor. Instead of using a ladder to look inside, he stood on top of the metal screw conveyor cover his foot slipped and he fell approximately three feet to the grating floor hitting his head and suffered serious injuries.
BEST PRACTICES
Download MSHA Alert HERE.
Potash Facility – A miner was entangled in the belt system while unloading a rail car into a belly dump haul truck using a portable conveyor system. The miner was released from the hospital without any apparent broken bones or lacerations. A similar accident occurred at a sand and gravel mine in 2014, however that accident resulted in a fatality. [2014 #12 MNM]
Best Practices
Click here for: MSHA Alert for Posting (pdf)
