 Safety on or near water. It's 7.45 a.m. Normal starting time for Carl, John and Alex. Their job today is to change out of pump. A pretty simple task? Yeah. But today something will go wrong. Terrible wrong for these miners. John and Alex went to work on a pump with a sledge hammer and a wrench. Only to discover they needed a larger wrench. They yelled at Carl to get a larger one. Discovering the workboat partially filled with water, Carl walked to the edge of the pump and got on the pipeline. Moments later, John and Alex heard Carl scream for help. John and Alex scrambled to the workboat and struggled to dump the water that had partially filled it. Alex walked the discharge pipe to the dredge where he grabbed the 10-foot section of PVC pipe. He went back to where he last saw Carl and began pushing the pipe through the water in hopes Carl would grab it. The team later found Carl's body in about 20 feet of water. Carl was one of 23 miners and supervisors to perish by drowning or in a drowning-related accident at a mine site since 1990. Of the 23 victims, 12 died while operating mining equipment. 10 slipped or fell into the water and one drowned while swimming from shore. It's pretty easy to drown. A lot easier than you think. You can suffocate from inhaling water into your lungs or your throat can spasm when you fall into the water and cause you to stop breathing. In any case, you can't survive too long without air. Exposure to cold or hypothermia is another killer. Hypothermia is aggravated when it occurs in combination with water. Mining is a hazardous occupation at best and it's even more dangerous when it takes place on or near water. What are some of the hazards that you may find? The list of potential hazards and safety problems encountered while working around water is longer than you think. Some of these hazards include slips and falls, electrocution, dangers posed by high pressures, welding and cutting, materials handling, pinch points, cables or wire ropes, fires, and bad weather. Let's take a minute to look at each one of these hazards. The most serious hazard around water is falling and being caught between a barge and a dock, a barge and a processing plant, or a barge and a dredge. With all the different kinds of equipment involved with mining, you really do need to watch your step. Slipping and tripping hazards include oil, grease, water and loose material on metal decks. Cables and unsecured lines are also tripping hazards. Electricity and water don't mix. You need to be especially careful around any electrical installations that are near water. High pressure pipes and pumps can throw people when they start, as pressures change drastically. Welding and cutting can be dangerous if you don't use proper procedures. Liquids or gases can explode and throw you into the water. Materials handling can be dangerous if it's not done correctly. Be careful with awkward loads. Drag lines and clamshell dredges may have a very dangerous pinch point as the machine swings. Cables, wire ropes can break. A broken cable will often whip or backlash violently, often with disastrous results. Equipment fires are dangerous at any time, but especially so around dredges and barges. You can get trapped and not be able to escape, or your only escape may be the water, which is why your life vest is so important. Weather directly affects safety. Fog, ice, snow, rain and lightning should make you more cautious. Dangers around tugs include slips and falls, rope burns from being caught in lines, falling and being crushed, and of course drowning. Loading barges at floating plants is also dangerous. You can be struck by falling materials or caught in conveyor belts that are moving material from the plant to the barge. Most important, you need to remember that you're responsible for your own personal safety. Pay attention to your surroundings. Be alert to sudden changes in the mining environment. Your work site is just that. A work site. Full of rough surfaces and poorly lit walkways. Areas of poor drainage. Water buildups. Uneven ground. Awkward climbing areas. And large machinery. All of which are potential hazards just waiting to cause an accident when you least expect it. The drowning we mentioned earlier might have been prevented if the victims had been wearing their life jackets. Wear your life jacket. It's the law. All life jackets or work vests need to fit properly. The best way to prevent slips, trips and falls is to practice good housekeeping. Clean up oil, grease and spilled material. Tie off if you're working where there's a danger of falling. It may take a few minutes, but it's worth your life. Be particularly careful when working around electricity. Providing good insulation and grounding and locking out and tagging before doing any electrical work are extremely important. Floating cables and power cables carried on pipelines must be properly insulated, adequately protected and frequently inspected. Mechanical bonding and grounding must be maintained. If you work on a dredge with an on-board power plant, remember that in most cases the vessel's hull is used as a neutral or ground return. People not familiar with marine electrical circuitry shouldn't be allowed to work on this equipment. Light bulbs that present shock or burn hazards must be guarded. Weatherproof lamp sockets must be used in wet conditions or where exposed to weather. Temporary lights need to be guarded, equipped with heavy-duty cords and properly grounded. Follow all welding and cutting safety procedures. If you're welding, pay special attention to masts, booms, support stanchions, pipe stanchions or railings if they're going to be heated. Test objects before welding to make sure that they're clear of water, flammable liquids or vapors. You don't want to be blown up. Check for fire after welding or cutting. Watch out for pinch points. In many cases, the operator can't see you, so it's up to you to make sure you don't get caught. Regularly inspect cables and ropes for wear or damage. Replace defective cables or ropes and maintain the cable, drum and sheave guards to help reduce the risk of injury if a cable should break. Store paints, thinners and solvents in fire-resistant cabinets. Good housekeeping helps reduce the danger of fire. Keep oil, grease, waste rags and other combustible materials in covered containers and away from potential ignition sources. Property-inspected fire extinguishers should be readily available. By the way, do you know where the firefighting equipment is at your work site and do you know how to use it? Pay attention to the weather. Use common sense if the weather turns threatening. What are some other things you can do to help prevent accidents on or near the water? Wear appropriate personal protective equipment such as suitable eye protection and proper boots or shoes and work gloves. Remember that most drownings occur when the victim slips, trips or falls into the water. Adequate footwear can help prevent accidents. Clean, slip-resistant boots and shoes suitable to the job you're doing can help keep you from being hurt or worse. As always, pay attention to your surroundings and adjust your steps accordingly. Never jump from one level to another whether on a tow boat, barge or dock no matter how small the distance seems to be. Use a secured ladder or turn around and gently lower yourself to the next level. Make sure to face the ladder when you climb up or down. Maintain three points of contact. That's two hands, one foot, two feet, one hand at all times. This helps you stay balanced and catch yourself should you slip. If a ladder is to be used to climb from a barge to a dock or between barges, it should be securely placed and the crewman should hold it to prevent sliding during all transfers. Remember to always step over or walk around hatch covers. Hazards such as hatch covers can be painted bright white or yellow to make them instantly stand out as a slip, trip and fall hazard. The same thing can be done with the leading edge of stair trims, spill rails, buttons, timber heads, gavels and other deck biddies. So far we've reviewed ways of preventing accidents that can happen on the water, but areas near water can be dangerous too. Crew or work boats used to transport men and equipment need to be marine worthy. Boats should be inspected for overall integrity and buoyancy. Never exceed the capacity of a boat. Increasingly supervisors are involved in more and more accidents. Unfortunately in many cases it's been several years since many supervisors have actually been doing the work. As supervisors you need to be alert to the common hazards you may have forgotten or changes that have occurred. Recently a series of fatalities occurred that were not directly caused by drowning but rather by some type of equipment failure, poor maintenance of roadways and operator error. These water related fatalities could have been avoided by following required inspections and maintenance programs. What can you do to avoid becoming a victim? In addition to following the safety procedures we've talked about already, you can do a few more things. Let's take a look at it. You need to work where others can see, hear or talk to you. Perform pre-operation checks on equipment. Remove all defective equipment from service until it can be repaired. As always pay attention to your surroundings and immediately report any unsafe conditions. Remember working together we can make safety happen. But today something bad is going to happen, something really horrible. John and Alex carried a stick and a torch to change the bomb and when they arrived they saw they needed a bigger key. Hey Carl, we're going to need a bigger key. Okay. That's why Carl went to look for a bigger key. By realizing that the boat had water inside, Carl preferred to walk on the pipe to look for it. Shortly after John and Alex heard Carl's screams asking for help. John and Alex went to the boat and tried to get the water inside. Then Alex walked on the pipe to look for a PVC pipe of 10 feet long. He immediately returned to where Carl had fallen and put the pipe into the water, hoping that he would catch it. The bushes found the body at 20 feet deep. Since 1990 the mining facilities have failed 23 people counting Carl, some drowned and others in similar conditions. Of the 23 victims, two died manipulating the mining team. Ten of them fell down or fell into the water and one drowned while swimming. To drown is easier than one can imagine. You could drown by pouring water into the lungs or your throat could contract when you fell into the water and prevent you from breathing. In any case, you couldn't survive long without breathing. The exposure to cold or hypothermia is also deadly. Hypothermia is aggravated when it has a place inside the water. The mining is a activity full of risks and is even more dangerous when you have to work in the water or near it. Do you know what are the risks you can face? For example, the list of potential risks and security problems when you work near the water is wider than you think. Some of these factors are the falls and falls. Electrocution. The dangers of high pressures. Soldiers and cuts. The handling of materials. The tip of a pole. The cables or metal cables. The fires and the bad weather. Let's take a closer look at each of them. The most dangerous thing when you work near the water is the fall and the pressure between a boat and a dike. Between a boat and a processing plant. Or between a boat and a dragon. When there are so many different equipment in the mining, you have to really take care of where you walk. One can fall or drop by stepping on oil, grease, water or loose material in the metal covers or by rounding your feet with cables and more loose. Since electricity and water are not combined, you must always be alive when there are electrical installations near the water. The conductors and high pressure bombs can cause an individual at the time of their start due to the drastic change of pressure. Soldiers and cuts can be dangerous when the proper process is not followed. The liquids and gases can explode and cause water to flow. Manipulating the material in an inappropriate way can also be dangerous. Be careful when loading something voluminous. When turning, the dragalins and savable dragals can also have very dangerous lead tips. No matter how resistant it may be, any type of cable can be broken. A broken cable can give violent scratches and cause serious accidents. A fire is always dangerous, especially when it has a place near the dragals and boats. One can be caught or not have another way to get out of the water, which is why it is important to have your life jacket placed. Meteorological conditions directly affect safety. That is why be careful when there is fog, ice, snow, rain or lightning. Remolkers have certain dangers, since apart from drowning, one can slip, fall, burn with ropes or crush. Charging boats in floating plants is also dangerous, since one can get hurt by a drop of material or be trapped between the ropes that transport the material. The most important thing is to remember that you are responsible for your own safety. Pay attention to your surroundings and be alert to any sudden change in your work environment. Your work site is only that. A work site. A place full of rough surfaces, of lightened paths, of areas with fishing drainage, of water tanks, of irregular floors, of difficult access areas and of large machinery that represent potential risks for your safety, since an accident can happen from one moment to another. Deaths for drowning could have been prevented if the victims had brought their life jacket in place. Use your life jacket. It is mandatory. All life jackets or work clothes must be taken care of. The best way to avoid balloons, trophies and falls is to keep everything clean. Clean the oil stains, grease and any other material. Beware when you think it can fall. It is better to lose a few minutes than life itself. Be very careful when you do electrical work. It is extremely important to have a good insulation, a good land, or even better, to cut the current and put labels to do any electrical work. The floating cables and power that go inside the conductors must be very well insulated and protected. They must be checked frequently. Mechanical connections and lands must be maintained. If you work in a drag with a central of energy on board, remember that almost always the helmet of the boat is used as a return for land. The people who do not know the electrical systems of the boats should not work in this type of equipment. To avoid risks of electric shocks or burns, protect the focus and use flashlights to test the weather in humid or outside conditions. The provisional lights must be protected, have high-resistance cables and a good land. When it rains or cuts, follow all safety procedures. Be very careful with the masts, paddles, rods and any type of points in case you have to heat them up to solder them. To avoid the risk of explosions, make sure that the objects that will solder do not have water, vapors or inflammable liquids. After soldering, check that nothing can cause a fire. Be careful with the tip of the tip so that it does not get trapped. Remember that in many cases, the operator cannot see it. Check regularly the state of the cables and the ropes. To reduce the risk of injuries in case of a rupture of the cables, preventive and corrective maintenance of cables, drums and protection of poles. Protect the paint, dissolvents and solvents that move resistant to fire. This can reduce the risk of fires. Protect the oil, the grease, the traps and all other fuel materials in closed containers for emergency use. Check the exceintors properly and keep them in your hands. By the way, do you know where the fire of your plant is located? Do you know how to use it? Check the climate and use your common sense if this changes and becomes threatening. I have here other things that can be done to prevent accidents if you work in the water or near it. Use the personal protection equipment or special gloves to work. Remember that the people that have been drowned first have been rinsed, or fallen into the water. To prevent this, use only appropriate shoes or shoes with clean soles and anti-slip shoes for your type of work can prevent any minor or major accident. As always, pay attention to your surroundings and adapt your way of walking to the state of the land. If you are on a boat or on a dike, don't jump from one level to another even though the distance is too short. To go down, use fixed stairs or turn slowly. Whenever you go down or go up a stairs, do it in front of you and keep three contact points. So, two hands and one foot or two feet and one hand. This allows you to keep your balance or to stop in case of a possible fall. From one boat to another, you need a ladder. This must be well held and grabbed by a tripler to prevent balloons. Remember that you should never step on the stairs. To prevent the risks that represent these steps, it is better to paint them white or yellow so that they can be seen immediately. The same can be done with the bare parts of the stairs and with any other accessory or part of the other equipment. So far, we have given certain advice to prevent accidents that may have a place in the water. But don't forget that the areas close to the water can also be dangerous. All the boats to transport men and equipment have to respect the marine requirements. In addition, you must check the reliability and flotability of the boats. Never overload a boat. More and more, the supervisors are involved in accidents. Unfortunately, for a few years now, many supervisors have been making certain security procedures. As a supervisor, you need to pay attention to any changes or certain risks that are common that are sometimes forgotten. Until recently, the deaths were not directly related to drowning, but with certain types of failures in the machinery, with the bad maintenance of the steps or with the errors of the operators. These types of deaths have affected the inspection and maintenance programs required. What can we do to avoid one of these victims? In addition to following the security procedures that we have already mentioned, we can do some other things. Let's see them quickly. Work in areas where you know that someone can see it, hear it, or talk to it. Verify the machines before using them. Put out of service any equipment that is not useful until it has been repaired. As always, pay attention to your surroundings and immediately report any unsafe working conditions. Remember that when working together we will achieve security.