According to the US Mine Safety and Health Administration’s preliminary findings, four-year mining veteran Christopher Brown was killed at the Jim Walter Resources No. 7 mine in Tuscaloosa County on the evening of June 6 while checking a belt wiper at the conveyor discharge.
“He was positioned at the end of an elevated catwalk parallel to the belt drive to check the wiper,” investigators found.
“When the victim contacted the guardrail at the end of the catwalk, it gave way and he fell below onto the moving belt conveyor.”
MSHA initially said two other miners were on the catwalk and two others were on the mine level and one of the group engaged the belt stops immediately after witnessing the accident.
JWR parent company ordered all workers from the No. 7 operation be sent home following the incident, and the producer marked a 24-hour mourning period thereafter.
In hope of preventing similar events at other mines in the nation, federal investigators are reminding operators to check the guards along the belt conveyors for stability and good repair, and to train all mine employees on the dangers of working or traveling around moving conveyor belts.
MSHA also has urged the installation of appropriately-designed railings, barriers or covers at all required conveyor belt locations. Once in place, staff should make sure these are maintained in structurally sound condition.
At all operations, there should be belt conveyor stop and start controls at areas where miners must access both sides of the conveyor. In all areas, adequate crossing facilities such as cross-overs and cross-unders should be provided.
Finally, officials have reminded mines to always perform workplace examinations and never assume handrails or guards are strong enough to support and individual.
Brown’s death was the ninth recorded this year in US coal, and the third to be classified as a powered haulage incident.
The JWR No. 7 longwall mine produced about 4.8 million tons of bituminous coal in 2012, according to federal records.
The last fatality at the operation was in 2009.
Jim Walter Resources, headquartered in nearby Brookwood, Alabama, estimated it had 203.4Mt of recoverable reserves at the end of last year.
