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VIDEO – Mine accident recreated to enhance safety around pick and carry cranes

A Franna Mac25 pick and carry crane gets inspected by a rigger on a mine-site in Perth, Australia.

A new animated video recreating malpractice around pick and carry cranes on a mine is being distributed to mines across Queensland.

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Distributed by Resources Safety and Health Queensland, the goal of the animation is to educate mine workers on how to avoid serious injury while working around pick and carry cranes. The animation depicts an incident that occurred on August 1, 2023, at a coal mine in the Bowen Basin, where a rigger was standing in the exclusion zone while a pick and carry crane was moving a load.

RSHQ Chief Inspector of Coal Mines, Jacques le Roux, said the video was commissioned as a way to educate Queensland mine staff after seeing an increase in pick and carry crane injuries.

“In this particular incident, the worker was standing within an exclusion zone, so he was far too close to the object that was being moved,” said Mr le Roux. It’s really important for mines to have no-go zones in place and enforced, to ensure there are no workers in harm’s way if a load drops from a crane, or changes course.”

According to RSHQ, the load shifted unexpectedly when being relocated and swung into the rigger, knocking him to the ground and fracturing his leg in multiple places. On top of emphasising the importance of establishing and enforcing exclusion zones, the video also underscores the need for proper lift planning and rigging when moving loads with due respect paid to the load being shifted and weight imbalances.

According to the Crane Industry Council of Australia, pick and carry cranes account for between 64 and 68 per cent of all crane incidents.

RSHQ is the regulator of safety and health legislation across Queensland’s mining, quarrying, explosives (including fireworks) petroleum and gas industries.

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