Mining services company MLG Oz Limited has been fined $750,000 at Perth Magistrates Court over an April 2022 incident.
Mining services company MLG Oz Limited has been fined $750,000-and ordered to pay $6,702.70 in costs-at Perth Magistrates Court over an April 2022 incident at Evolution Mining (Mungari) Pty Ltd's Mungari gold mine 20km west of Kalgoorlie in which a heavy diesel mechanic suffered a serious crush injury and a left humerus fracture.
MLG Oz pleaded guilty to contravening sections 19(1) and 31(1) of the Work Health and Safety Act 2020. The company failed to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, the health and safety of a worker, a failure that caused serious harm to an individual.
In April 2022, an MLG Oz-employed heavy diesel mechanic with 15 years of experience was performing recurring maintenance on a stacker while it was in use. The frequency of the maintenance task, which involved adjusting the stacker's conveyor belt tracking and clearing any accumulated material, had increased to approximately once a day leading up to the incident.
MLG Oz had an established job hazard analysis procedure on the site. However, neither MLG Oz nor Evolution Mining provided site workers with either a safe work procedure/statement or job hazard analysis specific to clearing material on the adjustors of the belt of the stacker.
The stacker's unguarded side access port enabled the heavy diesel mechanic to reach some of the operating machinery's moving parts. Using a paint scraper, the worker tried to remove built-up wet material from the adjusters of the stacker's conveyor belt. However, one of the mechanic's sleeves caught in a nip point-a location in machinery where two moving parts come close together-and the worker became entangled in the stacker, which caused them to suffer a serious crush injury and a left humerus fracture.
After a nearby mobile plant operator observed the heavy diesel mechanic waving their right arm, the former shut down both the stacker and its associated screen. Rescuers cut the stacker's conveyor belt so that they could free the entangled worker, whom the Royal Flying Doctor Service airlifted from the Goldfields to Perth.
When MLG Oz received the stacker in December 2020, it had guarding installed. However, the guarding around the stacker's side access port and tail drum roller had been absent since MLG Oz commissioned its use at the incident site in May 2021.
It is common knowledge in the mining industry that plant guarding is a control measure to protect workers from exposures to hazardous moving parts. The then code of practice, Safeguarding of Machinery and Plant 2009, identified conveyors as posing entanglement risks and recommended that workers should use isolation procedures to de-energise plant before performing maintenance tasks, such as cleaning.
The code also acknowledged that, on occasions, it may not be possible to perform work with guarding systems in place. However, in such instances, companies must have ensured that workers do not operate near or pass close to any moving parts unless there is a safe system of work.
WorkSafe Commissioner Sally North said that failures to adequately isolate conveyors to ensure the safety of workers are still far too frequent, and this incident is an example of the consequences of such failures.
"MLG Oz could have easily and inexpensively implemented isolation procedures to ensure the stacker was de-energised before any worker accessed the tail drum roller via the side access port to remove material from the conveyor belt tracking adjusters," Ms North said.
"If MLG Oz had taken that reasonably practical measure, it would have reduced the risk of the heavy diesel mechanic becoming entangled in the stacker, and consequently, the risk of the worker sustaining the serious injuries that they suffered in their workplace."
Following the incident, MLG Oz removed the stacker from service.
Information on the safe use of plant is available on the Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety - WorkSafe website.
