I can't wrap my head around this one.

[tamrock]

Yesterday I caught up with a class in Denver where MSHA was giving an annual refresher, as mine had just expired. In recent years the number one cause of fatalities on mine sites has been the result of mobile equipment. This accident happened in October 2017 at a open pit gold mine in Navada. I go to northern NV as we have a facility out there and I heard about this, but never herd there were 9 people in this van. The two fatality was the driver and front seat passenger. The guy driving was the companies safety man and the other guy sitting next to him was one of the mines foreman. The other passengers were all new hires going along for an orientation and instructional tour of the mines open pit operation. There was 3rd person with non-threatening life injuries, but people in the back all came out unscaved. I've read a lot of MSHA fatalgrams, but this one just blows my mind. How would you like to be one of the guys in the back with that story about your first week on the job?. Notice the blue tarp, as they put it up to cover the unpleasant looking part of the investigation.

 

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[ARC]

Wow... not good.

 

[digger460]

How does that happen with those small buildings driving around? Terrible.

 

[tamrock]

How does that happen with those small buildings driving around? Terrible.

Well the instructor did say in the beginning we are gonna talk about the battles between the big trucks and little trucks and the one that always wins. There were two other fatality accidents we went over where the little trucks lost in the battle of the big haul trucks. What they found everytime it was the lack of communication between the two vehicle operators. You can't see anything close when you're up in the cab of those haul trucks. One of the other accidents was a guy in a smaller F550 service truck parked in a dump turn around at night, so he could get a cell signal. A haul truck back over that service truck and the guy inside it. The haul truck driver felt his truck rock a little and thought he ran over some rock spillage, so he pulled a U turn to see what it was, thinking it be some rock he could radio the front end loader guy to come and clean up. What he saw was a completely flattened Ford F550 service truck.

 

[Kray Gelder]

It took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at in the photo. A terrible thing. It is hard to comprehend how that van driver got in the way of something so enormous.

 

[Blak bart]

You would think that technology would make somthing like that impossible, but I guess not !! What a shame. No audible alarm, no camera moniter system, what about a simple radio cotact. Ive never been on a site like that so I really dont know how it works. Im sure they do the best that possibly can be done. Im with you hard to understand how it could happen.

 

[arizau]

The thing about haul trucks is that they have a great view of the road ahead and to the driver's side but only have a horizon view, other than with mirrors, on the opposite side of the truck. The cabs, at the mine where I worked, were at least 10' above the ground back in the 60's early 70's and they progressively were situated higher as we acquired higher payload capacity trucks. Not sure what the safety investigation showed but it appears that the van driver did not follow best safety practices and was at fault. Too bad.

 

[Goldwasher]

looks like he was backing up and turning

 

[Assembler]

looks like he was backing up and turning

Maybe the safety report will give a better idea if the earth moving truck was going forwards or backwards. The truck could have turned the front wheels at any time as the wheel is bigger then the van for the most part.

 

[arizau]

Today's standard mine pit traffic is left hand side driving only and I'm pretty sure trucks are loaded from it's left side so to me it looks like the truck had circled in from the left to the shovel (out of sight on the right of the pic(?) for loading and was pulling away to make the haul to the crusher or dump. The background looks to be part of the muck pile from a blast and is why I think it happened at or near the shovel and the truck was pulling away....dumps, a reason for backing, have relatively short piled up berms as a target/safety measure for the trucks to dump over. Van parked too close to activity and on the blindside to boot(?) don't know but it sure looks like it.

 

[Mad Machinist]

The haul truck was moving forward and pulling out of a parking ditch. The van parked in the haul trucks blind spot while giving the new miners a tour and the rest......

 

[blackchipjim]

That is just horrible how things like that happen. When I worked in the steel mill we had a woman worker that was flattend by one of those big trucks hauling slag. Between trains and big ass trucks you never knew what would get you if the hot steel didn't/

 

[Assembler]

That is just horrible how things like that happen. When I worked in the steel mill we had a woman worker that was flattend by one of those big trucks hauling slag. Between trains and big ass trucks you never knew what would get you if the hot steel didn't/

Just wondering if Todd Hoffman got there moving violation fine in part because of this accident happened in October 2017? Was Todd H. fined in August 2017? Don't recall.

 

[DizzyDigger]

Back when I was truckin' I carried a load of Bentonite from Greybull
Wyoming down to Arizona. Loved hauling that stuff..heavy, and a full
load of it rarely was more than 4' off the deck.

Anyways, when I got to the copper mine in Az. they had me drive
it down to the bottom of the pit..meaning I had to drive down the
haul road..and on the wrong side of the road (to me).

At the time I was driving a Freightliner Classic conventional, but
it felt awfully small when I had to pass one of those giant haul trucks
coming back up out of the pit. They were big enough to run me over and
not even know it!

Ya don't usually fear much when you're in a Freightliner, but those haul trucks are
just massive rolling monsters.

 

[barrelroll]

Safety guys, do as I say not as I do and I'll tell you how to do your job but have never done it. There's exceptions to it but most safety guys have never actually worked in a mine besides a cushy office. The better ones have usually spent some time actually working in a mine before they end up in the safety office.

I'm pretty sure an MSHA truck got run over a year or 2 ago at a coal mine but I can't find the info about it now.

I got into it the other day with one of our safety guys. I was in a piece of open equipment with very little operator protection headed up a ramp, he was in a buggy headed down the ramp. Underground uphill equipment has the right of way and the general rule of thumb is buggies should yield to larger equipment no matter their direction of travel. Instead of pulling off into a cutout he flew by or backing up he flagged me by putting both of us at risk. When I calmly brought it up to him later it's like it was going in 1 ear and out the other. I got a green bean response about not being able to tell what's headed up the ramp and no concern that I can't see the other side of the equipment. If he doesn't get some common sense he's going to end up like the safety guy at Marigold.

 

[tamrock]

Safety guys, do as I say not as I do and I'll tell you how to do your job but have never done it. There's exceptions to it but most safety guys have never actually worked in a mine besides a cushy office. The better ones have usually spent some time actually working in a mine before they end up in the safety office.

I'm pretty sure an MSHA truck got run over a year or 2 ago at a coal mine but I can't find the info about it now.

I got into it the other day with one of our safety guys. I was in a piece of open equipment with very little operator protection headed up a ramp, he was in a buggy headed down the ramp. Underground uphill equipment has the right of way and the general rule of thumb is buggies should yield to larger equipment no matter their direction of travel. Instead of pulling off into a cutout he flew by or backing up he flagged me by putting both of us at risk. When I calmly brought it up to him later it's like it was going in 1 ear and out the other. I got a green bean response about not being able to tell what's headed up the ramp and no concern that I can't see the other side of the equipment. If he doesn't get some common sense he's going to end up like the safety guy at Marigold.

You might be thinking of this incident https://www.aggman.com/fatalgram-miner-in-small-vehicle-run-over-by-haul-truck/ The accident and fatality rate on surface operations is now exceeding those of underground operations.

 

[tamrock]

Back when I was truckin' I carried a load of Bentonite from Greybull
Wyoming down to Arizona. Loved hauling that stuff..heavy, and a full
load of it rarely was more than 4' off the deck.

Anyways, when I got to the copper mine in Az. they had me drive
it down to the bottom of the pit..meaning I had to drive down the
haul road..and on the wrong side of the road (to me).

At the time I was driving a Freightliner Classic conventional, but
it felt awfully small when I had to pass one of those giant haul trucks
coming back up out of the pit. They were big enough to run me over and
not even know it!

Ya don't usually fear much when you're in a Freightliner, but those haul trucks are
just massive rolling monsters.

Yeah most all the big pits are left hand traffic. I've driven behind those big trucks a few times. That is always going down hill behind them. Once I was working at an operation that had portals with in the big pit. I was testing bits for two weeks on a drill jumbo. One time after the shift I headed out and walked that time to where my truck was parked at the portal. It was one killer of a hike at the last 1/4 mile up a very steep incline. When I got out the weather was turning real bad and half way down the mountain it went to a complete whiteout. I had a CB on channel 10 and heard all traffic was stopped, which gave me a great sigh of relief, as I was like holy crap I'll never be seen by a big haul truck in this weather. I did radio in I coming down and a drive that normally took 20 minutes to the gate took an hour. The dispatcher was checking my progress as I came down. There were times I couldn't see 10 feet in front of me.