Mines are required to be prepared for an emergency. Reece said overall mine management had appropriate systems in place and emergency preparedness was adequate. However, a gap existed between management with a philosophy focused on safety and preparedness who go above and beyond what was required legally, and those who don’t.

“Emergency preparedness is in place but the concern I have is it tends to depend on the philosophy of the management. If the management is committed to it and they recognise there is an issue that people need to be trained, then they will go out there and embrace it and do a good job but if they want to avoid it, then they can,” said Reece.

Reece also spoke on the minimum standard equipment that could be integrated into a mine’s emergency preparedness, including borehole evacuation, CABA, gas monitoring, lifelines and blind man sticks.

Reece particularly commended the lifeline.

“It’s chalk and cheese between a mine that is set up with a life line and a mine that is set up with reflective lines etc. Life lines really do assist in a much greater extent in evacuating people.”

He said one drawback of the lifelines, as perceived by management, was the maintenance cost. However, in his experience once miners gained an appreciation of the lifeline, personnel tended to see to the maintenance of the lines off their own back.

He also lauded the benefits of emergency exercises. “People take part in an exercise and all of a sudden the training starts to make sense it gets in their hearts and minds simply through experience.”

Another simple piece of rescue equipment mines have begun to pick up is the blind man stick. Reece said the sticks, for use in low visibility, provided miners with a level of comfort through noise and physical contact.

Reece is also exploring the decision making process during an emergency. He said the system currently used - Incident Management Teams (IMT) – was a concern for teams running emergency exercises because of its lack of structure and inappropriate decision making process.

To overcome this Reece and other industry representatives are exploring a new thinking - Incident Control System – used by the Queensland fire and rescue and a number of other emergency organisations.

To assess the applicability of the new system to the longwall industry, Reece along with representatives from Queensland Mine Rescue Service, New South Wales Mine Rescue, CFMEU and North Goonyella will attend a course in July with Queensland Fire and Rescue.

“From my initial observations, incident control system provides some opportunities for us to improve, at least a structure to follow if there is an incident.

Research from defence forces and oil rigs are finding in an emergency people shouldn’t make decisions in a way they typically make decisions. A different ideology called dynamic decision making has emerged which utilizes a persons experience and expertise more so than traditional decision making would.

Reece said although the adoption of a different system was some time away, it was certainly something that would be assessed.