Leg crush injury recreated to improve safety at Queensland mines
A new animated video that recreates the moment a mine worker was badly injured is being sent to mines across Queensland.
The goal of the animation is to educate mine workers on how to avoid serious injury while working around pick and carry cranes.
The animation depicts an incident that happened on August 1 2023, at a coal mine in the Bowen Basin.
A pick and carry crane was being used to roll a surface pump, but while it was being moved, the load has shifted and swung into a rigger, knocking him to the ground and fracturing his leg in multiple places.
Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ) Chief Inspector of Coal Mines Jacques le Roux said RSHQ commissioned the animation as a way to educate Queensland mine staff after seeing an increase in pick and carry crane injuries.
"In this particular incident, the worker was standing within an exclusion zone so he was far too close to the object that was being moved," said Mr le Roux.
"It’s really important for mines to have no-go zones in place and enforced, to ensure there are no workers in harm’s way if a load drops from a crane, or changes course."
Articulated mobile cranes are widely used in coal mines and are essentially a cross between a truck and a crane, allowing workers to move heavy loads.
If weight is not evenly distributed it often causes rollovers, loads falling, mechanical failures and collisions.
The Crane Industry Council of Australia estimates pick and carry cranes account for between 64% and 68% of all crane incidents.
ENDS
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Amy McCann
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Last updated: 25 Mar 2024
