7 miners have died after falling from equipment since 2015.
Three fatalities occurred when miners attempted to mount or dismount equipment. One fatality occurred when a miner did not tie off in an aerial lift while conducting maintenance. Three fatalities have occurred in 2020 involving miners falling from trucks.
- Two of these involved closing the hatch of a bulk tanker truck.
- One involved falling from the top of a trailer while adjusting a tarp.
Between January 2019 and August 2020, MSHA issued 72 imminent danger orders for people working atop trucks, front end loaders, aerial lifts, bulldozers and railcars. The most common violations were equipment operators climbing atop their vehicles.
Best Practices
- Provide safe truck tarping and bulk truck hatch access facilities.
- Provide mobile or stationary platforms or scaffolding at locations and on work projects where there is a risk of falling.
- Reduce hazards. Design work areas and develop job tasks to minimize fall hazards.
- Have a program. Establish an effective fall prevention and protection program that provides task and site-specific hazard training.
- Provide a fall protection harness and lanyard to each miner who may work at an elevated height or a location unprotected by handrails. Ensure their use.
- Instruct miners to use three points of contacting when accessing machines. Proactively enforce fall protection equipment usage and safe work-at-height policies and procedures with supervisors, miners, contractors, and truck drivers.
For PDF of Safety Alert Click Here