Performing a risk assessment is essential in mining to proactively identify, evaluate, and control potential hazards, ensuring a safer working environment for everyone. In the mining industry, we are accustomed to working around hazards. The hazards can come from a variety of sources; including the mine itself in the form of dangerous mine gases or from the mining equipment or from the task that is being completed. On your first day working in a mine, you were probably like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. There were hazards everywhere you looked. But after working for a few months, I bet you found yourself taking shortcuts and perhaps not inspecting your equipment or worksite as carefully as you did when it was all fresh and new to you. No matter how hard you try, after a while you become comfortable with the common hazards around you. This is called “complacency” and it can lead to accidents and injuries.
To stay safe, we need to pay attention to our surroundings and get in the habit of stepping back and really thinking through whatever task we are about to begin. Mines have many different names for this process. Sometimes it will be called a FLRA (Field Level Risk Assessment), and sometimes it will be called a TRACK (Think through the task, Recognize the hazards, Assess the risks, Control the hazards, Keep Safety #1), but they are all just different types of risk assessments. No matter the name, they are all intended to get you to stop, think through what you are doing, take a look at the hazards around you, assess which of the hazards could impact you the most, and then put controls in place to keep yourself safe.
The Importance of Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is made up of two things: The likelihood of a bad event happening and the severity of the outcome if the bad event does happen. Risk assessments can be done by safety professionals back in an office somewhere and be very useful, but the best risk assessments are done in the field by the people who are about to start that task. When you hear “risk assessment” you likely think of some formal process, but it is something you are likely already doing. The first step is to stop and think about the task at hand. The next step is to identify the hazards around you. Identifying hazards can be done using your experience, but also by reading written job procedures. Once the hazards are identified you need to assess them: Think about which are the most likely to happen and if they do happen which will have the worst outcomes. Once the assessment is complete you can focus on putting controls in place to keep you and those working around you safe
Conducting a Field Risk Assessment
Let’s say, for example, that we are an operator whose task is to take a haul truck down into the pit to get loaded. It’s a cold clear night, and the road conditions are good, we just inspected the haul truck, and everything looked good, but this is our first night shift as an operator. When we start thinking about all the hazards involved with driving into a pit it can be overwhelming. That is why we use our risk assessment to narrow down the list of hazards so we can focus on the ones we should be most concerned about.
So, let’s complete a risk assessment on this task. First, we need to consider the condition of our haul truck. Is the truck new or old? How did it look during your pre-operational inspection? Did you notice anything wrong the last time you operated it and did the previous shift say anything about any problems they had? A crash can cause serious injuries or even death so a haul truck in poor condition can have an outcome with very high severity. However, once we start assessing our hazards in this case things begin to look different. As we said above, we just inspected the truck, and everything looked good. Does this mean that nothing bad can happen? Of course not, but by doing an inspection (which is a type of a control) the likelihood of equipment failure has been reduced. The outcome of an equipment failure stays the same, someone can easily be hurt or killed, but because of the reduced likelihood thanks to your inspection the hazard of a failure has been reduced to the point where we don’t need to be as concerned.
The next hazard to consider is the condition of the road itself. Is it dry or has it been raining causing it to be muddy or is it winter and the road is covered in snow and ice? In our example the road is dry and in good condition. Having an accident because of poor road conditions can be very severe, but because it is a dry road, the likelihood of an accident is low. Now this could change if a storm moves in which is why we need always pay attention to our surroundings and if anything changes from the weather to an unseen complication, we need to stop and conduct another risk assessment.
The last thing to consider is your competency as an operator. In the example I used above, I noted that this is our first night shift as an operator. The severity of something happening due to operator error is the same, day or night, but because we are new to night shift the likelihood of something bad happening has just increased. Now our competency is a hazard we need to pay extra attention to. We have identified this as the hazard we need to be most concerned with so now we need to put a strong control in place before we begin our work. A good example of a control in this case would be to have a trainer or another experienced operator ride with us for the first hour or two until we feel comfortable.
Why Risk Assessments Matter
So, after doing our risk assessments we have determined that the biggest hazard we need to focus on is our inexperience operating the haul truck at night. Once you know the biggest hazard now determine the best control to put into place to keep yourself safe. In this case it was asking for someone more experienced to ride along with us. It might seem from reading this article that a risk assessment is time-consuming, but in real life you’d be surprised how little time they take.
It might sound strange, but at the end of the day, your safety is ultimately your responsibility. Obviously, your employer wants you to be safe and invests money in PPE, equipment and tools, but at the end of the day, it is up to you and the decisions that you make to keep yourself safe. And this is what makes a risk assessment completed by you in the field so powerful. It is completed using your experience and your knowledge. When you are the one doing the work, you are the best person to know what hazards to be concerned about. Everything; from the hazards of the task to the limitations of the equipment, and even to your personal faults. Before starting a task, please stop and do a risk assessment. Taking a step back and thinking about the hazards you need to focus on just might mean one less accident and one less life changed.
About The Author
John Fowler is a Certified Safety Professional and a Certified Mine Safety Professional who has worked on projects ranging from offshore oil/gas platforms in Alaska to surface and underground mines in the western US. You can contact John at john.m.fowler@gmail.com.
