Mining can be a dangerous business, throughout history there has been too many accidents, lives lost, limbs severed.
Although progress around safety has been made, one death on site is still one death to many.
Generally focus is placed on the employer; questions are asked; blame is laid, and rightly so: it is expected and written in legislation that an employer must provide a safe place of work for every single employee.
Every miner who sets off to work deserves to return home safely.
But when a chain of events sets off and one mistake or lack of consideration results in a life lost, it is the families that are left with the burden of heartache for years to come.
On November 19, 2010 twenty-nine miners never returned home. The men died in a gas explosion at New Zealand’s Pike River underground coal mine.
For Joanne Ufer November 19 is a date that will forever remain etched in her mind. That is the day Ufer lost her son, Joshua aged just 25.
Two years on Ufer took some time out to talk to Australian Mining about the legacy she is building to keep Joshua’s name alive and how her life changed forever on that fateful day.
“It’s been a really rough road, and it continues to be,” Ufer said.
“The loss, I will never get over and neither will his family and friends.”
The dangerous nature of what is left of the Pike River mine means the bodies of the men have never been recovered, making any hope of closure even harder to find.
“I don’t think it’s something we will ever get over, especially with him never being returned to us,” Ufer explained.
In her ongoing search of closure, Ufer decided no other family should go through what her’s has, not on her watch, and so teaming up with the Mine Safety Institute of Australia, Ufer is determined the same mistakes made at Pike River are never repeated here.
Joshua’s legacy – Improved Australian mine site safety
In the wake of the Pike River mine disaster the New Zealand Government authorised a Royal Commission to investigate the tragedy, which took over 12 months and cost $10.5 million to complete.
The report that eventuated contains a host of valuable lessons which Ufer and the team at MSIA believe need to be implemented here in Australia in order for zero harm to be achieved.
Together with Commissioner Stuart Bell and MSIA director Mark Parcell, Ufer is taking her mission on the road, running seminars to discuss the key findings of the Pike River report.
“It’s about learning the lessons from the past, from people who know the information, making sure we get it right so we minimise the grief for people in the future,” Parcell said.
“Good will come out of [the sessions] and people will take away a few lessons from the Pike tragedy,” Ufer said.
She said part of the seminars purpose is “to make sure we have the highest standards” and to ensure best practices are enshrined in Australia’s mining sector.
“We already have a good safety record; I just want to make sure everything that is covered in the Royal Commission report is done here, to adopt the practices and the recommendations, to make sure we are on top of the game.
“Tragedy with multiple loss of life has happened here [in Australia] before,” she said.
"There are still single fatalities on a too regular basis and I think any learnings are good learnings.”
Parcell says the seminars, which are scheduled for venues across the eastern sea board, will “simplify the 500 page Pike River report, bringing it to the people and making sure everyone is aware of what failed in New Zealand so Australia doesn’t have to have its own commission”.
“If you screw up all these processes you’re going to have an accident.
“We’re just keen to help,” he said.
Ufer and Parcel are also founding members of A Miners’ Legacy, a foundation set up to promote safety and to ensure miners’ families receive the support they need following a work accident.
Describing the organisation Parcell said it’s “part crusade and part therapy”.
Ufer agrees, telling Australian Mining the work the organisation does is key to the legacy she is forging for her son.
“I think what I’m doing is part of the process for me, keeping Joshua’s name alive and creating a legacy for him and the other 28 victims, to say this is what happened and let’s not allow it to happen again.
“Personally I feel he would be proud of me doing that.”
At the Pike River seminars Ufer will be discussing the personal effects the tragedy has had on her and the other families touched by the Greymouth disaster.
“I’m not a professional miner so I will be speaking from the heart.”
Lessons to be learnt
Drawing on her own experience in the aftermath of the explosion, Ufer also has her own ideas of what needs to happen if another life is lost.
“There are a few things companies can look at when engaging with the families when something like this happens.
“One example is to ensure next of kin details are kept as up-to-date as possible.
“Having the wrong or out of date details makes it very difficult for the right family members to get the necessary information,” she said.
Lack of communication was a real issue Ufer had to contend with following the accident.
In Ufer’s case, her son was working in New Zealand on a contract basis, whilst she was in Australia and his father was in China.
“So there were time issues with New Zealand being ahead of us.
“With social media these days companies don’t have the time that they used to have to ensure people get the news in the correct manner.
Ufer received a text message notifying her of her son’s death.
Technology has allowed for information to be distributed immediately on site which isn’t always a good thing Ufer explains.
“You can send a message immediately as soon as something happens onsite, whereas before you could shut down, go into lockdown mode, I don’t know how they’re going to get around that, but that is something that I would like them to think about.
With little to no contact from the owner of Pike River or the contractor who employed Joshua, the families of the Pike River Mine disaster were forced to form their own legal committee to represent their interests at the Royal Commission.
“They have done a great job of keeping us in the loop of what was happening with regular emails, phone calls, teleconferences and also weekly meetings.”
There was no counselling offered following the accident, however liaison officers were provided by Air New Zealand when it first happened.
“We had assistance from the Australian consular as well.”
The mine’s owners went into receivership a month after the accident
“The receivers were running the show and the company was not very forthcoming with information and now the mine’s been sold. So now we’re dealing with another set of owners who to date have been fairly reasonable, upfront and honest with what they expect.”
Forging a legacy
Director of the MSIA Mark Parcell told Australian Mining that now more than ever before miners’ families need support.
“The demographic has changed, in the old days the miner was a member of the union, and the union had women’s auxiliaries and everyone lived in the towns, there was no fly-in fly-out, drive-in drive-out, or 4 on 4 off.
“Everyone worked there Monday to Friday, eight hour shifts, they all played in the local footy team and it was a real community.
“However, now-a-days, more than 50 per cent of mine workers are contractors, everyone works a roster, they live in a camp, and their families live a thousand miles away.”
Parcell used the example of the tragic death of mining contractor Jason Blee, who in 2007 was crushed in a Queensland underground coal mine between a mine wall and a shuttle car.
Blee’s wife Rachel has been left to bring up their four children alone.
“Everyone now lives in remote locations; their families aren’t supported by the community, so all of these families are depending on the company [for support].
“In Rachel’s case, she wasn’t well supported and in fact she had to fight everyone to get anything.
“That’s not right. That’s just not fair. We’re such a big strong mining industry and we’re really neglecting the families of blokes who are severely injured and killed. We can’t do that,” Parcell stated.
Rachel Blee, also a member of A Miners’ Legacy and has like Ufer given numerous talks on mine safety and her personal experience of losing a loved one in a mine accident in an effort to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“I’ll make sure that he doesn’t die in vain and is remembered by more than his payroll number.
“I think the mining companies are getting better in their systems and how they’re looking after their employees, but I still don’t think they’ve gone far enough beyond what they can do. This is a never ending thing, we can learn for each fatality, but we shouldn’t actually have to learn from a fatality, we should be learning well before a fatality actually happens.
Both women cite similar communication issues in the industry which they believe need to be addressed.
“I think the communication was the biggest failure that happened on the day of Jason’s death. He was killed at 10:10am, I wasn’t informed until 2:30pm,” Blee said.
Discussing the fateful day of her husband’s death Blee said: “I feel let down by the mining companies in regards to not knowing why it took so long to be told, I could’ve been out there a lot earlier, I may not have been able to do anything but I would’ve known that my husband had been involved in an accident. I could’ve got someone to have my children, instead of having it all land in my lap when the police officers attended. Four and a half hours later it was, to be told tragic circumstances.”
Communication, or lack of it, seems to be a common theme after mine site accidents and there doesn’t look to be much relief in sight.
“Everyone else in town could’ve known well before me. I’m very lucky that my kids weren’t at school that day because it could’ve been catastrophic,” Blee said.
“Imagine now with all the technology we’ve got that if it went on Facebook, or now my older girls have got phones, if someone had text them to say ‘sorry about your dad’ that all could’ve been very bad news for them,” she said.
Ausco safety officer Mike Spriggs, said that technology isn’t making communication around mine site accidents any easier.
“With the world of electronic technology now it has to be done very, very quickly. To find out second hand as Rachel did is pretty average,” he said.
Coronial recommendations into Jason Blee’s death included the next of kin notification procedures be improved and followed.
“Zero harm is achievable if they have the right mindset about it,” Blee said.
A mining death is a community death
The small country town of Greymouth has suffered the full force of the Pike River tragedy.
“Similar to most of the mining communities in Australia, they’re very tight knit and mining is probably the thing that keeps their economy going. So they really suffered in a big way,” Ufer stated.
Reflecting on her experiences Ufer thinks “in some ways tragedy brings people closer together…the support was just amazing”.
“We were only over there for two weeks after it happened but it was just amazing what people were willing to give, and although it takes a tragedy it brings out the best in some people.
“To be honest, I would hate to see it happen over here again and that’s part of the reason why I’m doing what I’m doing, I wouldn’t want any person, family or community to ever deal with that again.”
Going back in
At present Pike River mine is in “care and maintenance mode” as the new owners “go back to the drawing board to look at everything,” Ufer told Australian Mining.
“The families have engaged a couple of well known mining experts to form a plan to see if we can get back into not the main workings but at least the drift which is about 2km long,” she said.
Ufer explained that because the explosion happened around shift change there could be the possibility that the miners were on their way out.
“It might also give more information about what happened and how damaged the mine actually is,” she said.
“Over two years later, no one has ever been more than about 170 metres in to see what really happened.
“We still have to deal with the ups and downs, its over two years and we’re really no closer to any finality then what we were in November 2010.
“It’s difficult but I think it will be worthwhile. Making sure everyone takes notice is the big thing.”