You can help save lives
I still vividly remember attending my first fatality.
A young electrician was electrocuted on a steel gantry. He had so much life ahead of him. And yes, his death was avoidable.
No one needs to lose their life in our industry. But sometimes we only learn from our experiences.
What I am asking you – and everyone in the extractive sector – is to share those experiences that stop short of a fatality or injury – but only by good luck or the grace of God.
Every quarry and mine has at least one narrow call that everyone on a site remembers. And hopefully learns from. But that’s where it stops. These ‘near misses’ are currently not included in notifiable incidents. So any learnings from a potentially fatal or serious injury are limited, at best, to the site where the near miss occurred.
I want to use these near misses to provide safety alerts to other New Zealand mines and quarries.
If we can get a regular stream of them, I believe we will save lives and serious injuries. Because these will be real examples that other quarries and mines can learn from.
So please take a few minutes to email or call me your site’s ‘near miss’ experience. I give my word that the information will not be on-passed and any use of it will remove any details that can identify a site.
I believe I will get a good response here. That’s in part because three months ago I asked for people to assist in another way – by becoming mentors to those sitting oral exams. We now have more than 20 mentors stretching from Northland to Southland. Have a read of what that’s meant for our first mentor – Keri Harrison – and one of her first students, Lara Murphy.
I’m still working my way around regional quarries and often finding some good practices such as those detailed in the article about my visit to the Barracks quarry in Marlborough.
You’ll also find some photos from a recent alluvial gold field trip on the West Coast and some commentary about whole body vibration issues.
All in all, a whole lot of shaking is going on here at MinEx and your ‘near miss’ experiences can help us build a safer and more productive extractive sector.
Wayne Scott
CEO – MinEx
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