On December 30, 2017, an employee in a pickup truck approached the quarry loadout area to get the Front End Loader (FEL) operator for lunch. The FEL backed into the pickup, pushing it sideways and crushing the driver’s side of the pickup cab, trapping the victim inside the truck. The pickup truck caught fire and efforts by the FEL operator and a nearby contractor to put the fire out using fire extinguishers were not successful.
Best Practices
- When approaching large mobile equipment, do not proceed until you communicate and verify with the equipment operator your planned movement and location. Provide radio communication systems between vehicles and large mobile equipment.
- Ensure all persons are trained to recognize workplace hazards – specifically, the limited visibility and blind areas inherent to operation of large equipment and the hazard of mobile equipment traveling near them.
- Ensure, by signal or other means, that all persons are clear before moving equipment.
- Minimize situations where smaller vehicles need to approach large front end loaders.
- Do not drive or park smaller vehicles in mobile equipment’s potential path of movement.
- Equip smaller vehicles with flags or strobe lights positioned high enough to be seen from the cabs of haulage trucks.
- Install and maintain proximity detection or collision avoidance/warning systems and cameras.
Click here for: MSHA Preliminary Report (pdf), Final Report (pdf).
On Friday, December 29, 2017, at approximately 12:57 a.m., a 34-year-old bulldozer operator with 10 years of mining experience was fatally injured. While pushing overburden toward the edge of a highwall, the bulldozer he was operating travelled over the edge, down an embankment, and came to rest approximately 400 feet from where it went over the highwall.
On October 17, 2017, a miner was fatally injured while operating a bulldozer on a downward slope. While pushing overburden to a rock bench below the top of the pit, he was ejected from the cab and run over by the left track. The machine continued to tram over the edge of the 58′ highwall.
On September 20, 2017, a contractor was fatally injured while rappelling within a conditioning tower. The victim was examining the inside of a 300’ vertical conditioning tower when an object fell from above and struck him in the head. The victim was conscious and transported to a local hospital where he died of his injuries the next day.
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.
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 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.