An Analysis of Injuries to Haul Truck Operators in the U.S. Mining Industry

Abstract

Because haul trucks are used extensively in mining, the operators of these trucks are exposed to various risks and hazards inherent to this occupation. The objective of this work was to profile injuries sustained during haul truck operations, to identify priorities for further investigation, and to determine potential injury prevention strategies. Data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) annual administrative database were sorted and reviewed to select records identifying a subset of injuries sustained during haul truck operations. Records covering a 5-year period (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) involving haul trucks were reviewed. The majority of the injury records were for injuries classified as "struck against moving object" (STRUCK) (N=613) and "slip or fall of person from an elevation or on the same level" (SLIPFALL) (N=359). Each injury narrative was read to determine the activity being performed during the injury (such as ingress, egress, driving, maintenance), the incident results (such as operator impact and truck impact), contributing factors to the event, and environmental factors. The nature of the injury, body parts affected, as well as lost work days were also quantified. The average lost work days for STRUCK and SLIPFALL injuries was 60 and 62, respectively. The majority of the total incidents resulted in sprain and strain injuries; the back was the most frequently injured body part injured. For STRUCK injuries, the majority of activities being performed at the time of the injuries involved driving (63%). More than one-third of the total incidents resulted in vertical jarring of the haul truck (36%), and the majority of the total incidents caused jolting and jarring to the operator (75%). For SLIPFALL injuries, the majority of incidents occurred during egress from the vehicle (46%), and of the total incidents, 32% resulted in the worker falling. Almost one-third of the total incidents were due to the operator's foot slipping (32%). Further investigation should focus on the factors contributing to haul truck operators being struck against a moving object and those related to operators slipping and falling.

Using Multiple Complementary Methods to Develop Ergonomics Audits for Mining Operations

“…For example, an analysis of injuries due to falls from equipment (Moore et al, 2009) was used to formulate some of the initial research questions or areas for investigation in the haul truck study. The formal analysis of haul truck injuries (Santos et al, 2010) then more acutely examined injury sources. Similar analyses for the other two types of operations were carried out.…”

Patterns in Mining Haul Truck Accidents

“…In the U.S. alone, the average number of mining-related fatal accidents in 2009/2010/2011 was 47 per year, while in 2011 there were also 7,494 reported mining-related injuries (US Department of Labor, 2011). Santos et al (2010) analyzed accident/injury reports for one type of mishap-haul truck use. Haul trucks are a heavy type of earth-moving equipment used in mining operations, and commonly carry 35-400 t of payload, with cabs 3-5 m above ground level.…”

“…With such sizes of equipment, the marshaling of energy in use can be extreme, with consequent serious injury potential. As Santos et al (2010) report, most of the injuries result from accident patterns commonly studied by the human factors/ergonomics (HFE) community: slips, falls, and struck against. The Santos et al analysis of 1,382 injury records from five years of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) database showed frequent HFE causal factors, including ingress/egress, maintenance, foot slippage, and equipment failure (see also Moore et al, 2009).…”

“…However, these reports do not attempt to classify the accident using the MSHA non-fatal accident classification systems. This last fact prevented the type of analysis performed by Santos et al (2010), but also freed the investigators to develop "bottom-up" scenarios which reflected the overall pattern of each accident. Such a system has been used in the past by Drury and Brill (1983) for consumer products and by Wenner and Drury (2000) for aircraft ground damage accidents.…”

A Field Study of Haul Truck Operations in Open Pit Mines

“…In general, Krowczyk (2004) attribute 24.5% of all fatal mine accidents to surface haulage, a number that rises to 37.9% when the focus is on surface mining only. Further, research has identified vertical jarring (sudden vertical impact) of the trucks while in forward motion as the primary cause of injury for haul truck operators (Santos, Porter, & Mayton, 2010). While the causes for haul truck crashes can rarely be attributed to a single factor, they often involve a significant human performance component (Patterson & Shappell, 2010;Randolph, 1998).…”