Coal Inspectorate | Alert | No.412 V 1 | 08 July 2022

Spinal injury resulting from mobile plant contact

What happened?

The bucket of an excavator working a double bench operation collided with the dovetail of a rear dump truck when swinging towards the truck tray. The excavator was on the lower 3.5m high bench at the time of the incident. The impact caused a significant amount of movement to the truck and injury to the operator. The injured operator received a fracture to the C5 vertebrae, resulting in hospitalisation for a number of days.

How did it happen?

• The accident occurred mid-way through night shift.
• The excavator operator had just returned to the bench from a crib break after hot seating with another operator.
• A change to the dig process was implemented mid-shift by the two excavator operators to minimise leaving a roll while double benching.
• The bucket of the excavator struck the truck tray dovetail during the second bucket load.

Key issues

• A change was made mid-shift to the dig process which did not have any applied risk-management processes.
• The excavator operator was distracted by the change when loading the truck.
• One of the engines in the excavator was down on RPM due to a wire fault. It is unknown at this time if this contributed to the accident.

Recommendations

All Site Senior Executives should ensure:

• any changes to dig process are conducted in accordance with the mine’s risk management systems and management of change process
• methods of operation are risk assessed and documented
• operators are trained, assessed and competent to operate plant
• maintenance systems effectively action / repair faults found in plant during servicing.