Eye Injury From Flying Rock Fragment

Description of the accident

A reverse circulation (RC) driller suffered an eye injury when a flying rock chip impacted his eye.

Apparent causes

The driller was operating a standard RC drill rig that had been fitted with an air-conditioned cabin to accommodate the driller.

While adding a new length of drillpipe out of the carousel, the driller made up the rotation head onto the new piece of drillpipe and then opened the main air valve to flush the drillpipe. The escaping air blast blew a piece of rock into the driller’s eye causing a severe laceration.

Additional factors

It appears that while adding the next length of drillpipe, the driller had to open the door of the cabin and put his head outside of the cabin in order to clearly see the rotation head and carousel. This was necessary because the cabin did not allow the Driller to have the necessary visual access to the drill and work areas.

Recommendations

A number of mining companies require that all exploration drill rigs are fitted with an air-conditioned cabin to house the driller in the same way as blast hole drill rigs are. To a large extent this is driven by a lack of understanding of the nature of an exploration drilling operation - blast hole drill rigs require one-man operation but exploration operations require drill crews of more than one person. There is absolutely no doubt that improving driller comfort will reduce driller fatigue but the comfort of the entire drill crew should be considered.

Very often these cabins are retrofitted to drills and frequently, the design of the cabin inhibits the driller’s ability to see all parts of the drill rig and work areas, careful consideration must be given to the design of the cabin and the placement of controls so that the driller does not need to exit the cabin at any time during operations.

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