Mark Gray, 27, an employee of Kentucky firm Hawkeye Contracting, was operating a Volvo A30D articulated dump truck at Centenary Coal’s Samples operation in Kanawha County, West Virginia, July 28 last year when he overturned the loaded unit into a newly constructed sediment pond.
The worker, who had seven years of experience, was traveling in reverse along a narrow road next to the pond and overtraveled the berm, which caused the truck to roll onto its roof in the water and trap him inside.
MSHA pointed out that inspections and tests of the Volvo truck did not find any physical factors that could have contributed to the fatality. Further, federal records indicated that Gray was in compliance with his training, having completed experienced miner, task training and annual refresher certifications in early June 2009.
“According to an autopsy and toxicological examination performed by the state of West Virginia's Department of Health and Human Resources Office of the chief medical examiner, Mark Allen Gray was found to have a blood alcohol/ethanol concentration of 0.08 per cent,” the agency confirmed in its report.
The state’s legal limit for blood-alcohol content is 0.08%.
“An inactive metabolite formed from the consumption of marijuana was also found in the blood,” investigators added.
MSHA found that Gray’s impairment, along with his inability to maintain full control of the truck while it was in motion, were root causes of the fatal incident.
As a corrective action, the agency ordered the operator to implement company policy outlining the proper use of company equipment and to retrain workers on the new regulations.
Additionally, the contractor has reinforced an existing substance abuse policy and retrained all individuals on the rules as well as drug and alcohol abuse hazards. Hawkeye also revised its company policy to include the following addendums:
The foreman shall have personal contact with each employee prior to the beginning of each work shift;
The operator shall, at weekly intervals, search or cause to be searched, any person, including his clothing and material belongings, entering or about to enter the mine, to prevent such person from taking or carrying therein intoxicants. If during these searches any illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia or alcohol is found, the material will be immediately removed from the minesite and employee(s) involved will be immediately removed from mine property; and
Pre-employment drug/alcohol testing will be conducted of all employees and unannounced drug testing without management's knowledge will be conducted on a frequent basis. If anyone fails the drug/alcohol test, he or she will be immediately removed from mine property.
The Samples mine, located in Eskdale, has a staff of 201 hourly and 62 supervisory and administrative personnel. It extracts from the Stockton, Coalburg and No. 5 Block seams at a rate of about 7000 tons daily.
The mine’s most recent regular safety and health inspection had been completed May 14, 2009. Samples’ non-fatal days lost injury incidence rate for the previous quarter was 0, versus the national NFDL rate of 1.38 in its class.
