BY KEITH LACEY
Instead of working together to resolve problems when accidents and fatalities occur, an adversarial attitude in the mining industry remains where management blames workers, a veteran miner told a coroner’s inquest.
“Any time there’s an accident (or fatality), what we all have to do is accept there’s something we all could have done differently. Instead the (company) is always trying to place blame,” said Lucien Duclos.
He testified Tuesday at an inquest into Kevin Payette’s death.
Duclos was working with Payette, 38, who died following an accident at Fraser Mine July 28, 2001.
The inquest is expected to last until the end of the week.
Duclos, who now works as a mining supervisor in Mongolia, told the jury,”It always surprises me when someone gets hurt, they (management) always want to blame him.”
Payette was seriously injured when a heavy baffle gate used to control ore in an underground chute moved and crushed him. Payette was rushed to hospital and died as a result of internal injuries the next day.
After the accident, Payette was a in tremendous amount of pain, but he kept talking to him, Duclos said.
Payette remained conscious the entire time he was transported by emergency crews to surface and then to hospital, said Duclos.
At the time of the accident, Fraser Mine was owned by Falconbridge Ltd., and is now owned by Xstrata Nickel.
Duclos told a four-woman, one-man jury, he was shocked when Payette attempted to place a blasting device up through the bottom of the ore chute with the baffle gate open. He was using 12-foot lengths of aluminum poles with a blasting device attached to the top end.
Payette “was very safety conscious,” but they got into an argument when the experienced miner insisted on trying to place the blasting device while the gate was open, said Duclos.
This particular chute had been blocked repeatedly over several days. Management wanted the chute blasted and cleared, said Duclos.
When asked if he would ever risk being under the chute with the baffle gate open while tens of thousands of pounds of rock were blocked or “hung up” in the chute, Duclos said it was well known you don’t take any such risk.
“Never. It would never happen...because it’s unsafe,” he testified. “You just don’t do that kind of thing.”
When asked how he thought the gate closed and crushed Payette, Duclos said he could only speculate that the aluminum poles Payette was using to push the blasting device up the chute accidentally triggered a lever several feet away on a catwalk.
“I can only guess, but I think he must have hit the valve with the end of the pole,” he said.
Duclos said he still doesn’t understand why he insisted on taking risks working at the bottom of the ore chute with the baffle gate open.
A foot-and-hand lever used to control the baffle gate and another gate at the bottom of ore chutes were often accidentally triggered as they were not covered and located in areas where workers walked by, said Duclos.
When asked about the company’s training methods overall and in relation to blasting ore chutes, Duclos said they were “adequate at best.”
At the time of this incident, Falconbridge had hired several new members in its transportation department at Fraser Mine, said Duclos.
Company safety manager Doug Brown testified Monday that each worker receives extensive training in several “modules” to learn how to properly conduct all underground tasks.
Duclos testified most workers hired had extensive mining contracting experience, but to suggest the training was extensive is not accurate.
Often, all new workers hired were given short training sessions and allowed to write tests without managers or supervisors in the same room, said Duclos.
“They would leave, come back and tell us you are done,” he said. “You can’t tell me that the training was adequate.”
In the minutes before Payette was crushed, Duclos testified he found out other workers working near the top of the ore chute were planning a large scale blast to try to bring the ore down and neither he nor Payette were informed.
It’s only because he contacted a control centre to notify a mine supervisor he and Payette were trying to place a blasting device from the bottom of the chute that he found out about what was going on several hundred feet above him, he said.
“Communication often leaves a lot to be desired,” he said.
Brown, who has worked in mining safety for much of his 25-year career, testified Payette had 14 years experience and had recently been hired after spending most his career in Timmins.
“He was no rookie...he was no greenhorn,” he said.
All workers are given extensive training on how to operate all equipment and conduct such tasks as blasting ore chutes, said Brown.
Each worker is placed with a safety trainer, and they aren’t allowed to work on certain tasks until that trainer is satisfied they are properly trained and competent, he said.
He agreed any experienced miner should never risk performing any chute blast while the baffle gate is open, he said.
“He was in an area we all know he should never have been in,” he said. “He was trained to never put yourself in harm’s way, and he did it anyway.”
A joint safety committee was formed after Payette’s death and 10 recommendations were made to ensure a similar accident wouldn’t take place again and none have, Brown testified.
Falconbridge was acquitted of several charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act following a lengthy trial which wrapped up last fall.