Brant, who lost both his legs in an accident at Oaky Creek No 1 mine, launched a program with Step Up Safety & Training Services two months ago. Since then, North has been on the move, delivering a presentation called Choices and Consequences that combines his personal story with general risk management information to mines around the country.

Step Up's Andrea Lamb said North's session has generated an incredible amount of interest throughout the Queensland mining industry, from mine workers, senior management and occupational health and safety professionals in the industry.

"Brant to date has delivered the session to approximately 350 mining personnel throughout Queensland operations and an encouraging number of bookings already secured for 2008 for a number of the major mining companies within both Queensland and New South Wales."

Lamb said that all of the interest in North's presentation has been generated as a result of his own experience.

"During the presentation, Brant just revisits his accident and reflects on the lost opportunities for prevention and then reinforces the importance of personal ownership and respect of safety, and through the confronting reality of his own personal story encourages mine workers to ask themselves what they could do differently to ensure their own safety at work and increase awareness of risk management," she said.

Although the story of North's accident is a moving one, Lamb said the session did not rely on an emotional connection to make its point, rather enabling listeners to identify with the situation and apply it to their own activities and approach to risk management.

By taking this approach, Lamb said it was hoped participants would be encouraged to initiate changes necessary to ensure their own safety when working underground. The strategy appears to be working, with many people telling North his story made them rethink the way they do things at work, particularly when it comes to routine tasks where complacency can increase the level of risk.

While safety awareness has improved greatly since North's accident in 1990, with more safety measures and equipment in place to protect underground miners, it seems the hot topic is the effect of the skills shortage on miners' safety.

"A lot of people are interested in Brant's view on how the industry has changed since his accident and how he feels about the current injection of so many inexperienced personnel in the industry.

"There has been a lot of genuine positive interest from the workforce about the new initiatives that will soon be available to better manage new entrants entering into the mining industry, such as the upcoming MISC mine readiness program and the various visual tools that are now available."

On an industry level, Lamb said there were more safety resources available than ever before. However it was also up to individuals within the industry to take steps to protect themselves, and others, against accidents.

"There is clearly a strong willingness to improve site resources, as demonstrated by the volume of interest generated around our simulated training programs and various other support services," Lamb said.

"A lot of workers do comment that listening to the presentation will change their attitudes towards safety at work and this attitude shift is of course is ultimately what we want to achieve from the session."