 On this edition of Mind Safety and Health News, you'll hear a seat belt success story where an off-road truck lost its power and brakes and the driver had to navigate his truck down a mountain backwards. This accident occurred in 1980 when older trucks didn't have emergency steering systems. The accident survivor now operates his own fleet of highway trucks. Let's listen as he describes his accident and how he feels about pre-operational checks and the use of seat belts. Mr. Sanders, I understand that early in your mining career you had a serious accident. Would you mind describing the events leading up to the accident? I wouldn't mind at all. I did have a serious accident. It involved a 50-ton rock truck. The preparation plan in which I was employed ran cold for half a shift and did maintenance work for the rest of the shift. And after the plane had shut down running cold, it was my duties to take the rock truck up the hill and dump the loader refuge that had been loaded that day. It was relayed to me that the truck had been fueled up so I just started up and headed up the mountain. I left the tipple. It was about a three-mile haul up hill somewhere around the 14% grade, I guess. And after we left the tipple, the trucks seemed to be running okay. We got to about the steepest place on the mountain and the truck ran out of fuel and it started to take off backwards. What type of things ran through your mind? A whole lot of things go through your mind at a time like that. I guess after I pulled the brake and realized it wasn't going to slow down, there was a lot more things that went through my mind. Where to go and how to get out of there. I thought about jumping, but on the driver's side was a high wall, so if I jumped, I'd been jumping over the mountain. Plus I don't know that I could have cleared the truck. Okay, so you decided to stay in the truck and ride it out? Yes. Did you have your seatbelt on? Yes. The truck took off backwards and started picking up speed real fast. And I looked in my mirror and there were some other trucks back about a thousand foot behind me coming up the hill. And we didn't have a CV in the truck, so there was no way to warn anybody. So the only option I really had was to try and turn the steering as much as I could to cut it back into the hillside. But the truck had hydraulic steering. So it was all I could do to move the steering wheel probably about a quarter of a turn. So it started a gradual turn back into the hillside. When the truck landed it, first it hit the hillside and went up in the air about 40 foot and come to land on its side in the road. And at that time the bed come loose from the truck and the motor come out of the truck and the rear ends, it just come apart like an explosion. And it slid probably about 200 foot on its side. So if you hadn't had your seatbelt on, what do you think might have happened? I don't know where I would have ended up without a seatbelt. I was in what was left of the cab and was real lucky. On the day of the accident, was there a pre-operational check done on this truck and if there was what conditions were noted? At that time we didn't do pre-operational checks, but if it had been done it probably would have prevented the accident because it would have shown that there was no brakes on the truck and it hadn't been fueled up. So it would not have put the operator in that situation. What conditions do you look for on a pre-operational check of the truck before it's put into service? On a pre-operational check there are a number of things the driver should look for. Some of the most important are checking the visible outside appearance of the truck, the tires, the springs, the fuel level, leaking wheel seals, condition of the brakes, oil leaking from the wheels, the condition of the steering, all your safety features. If you could give drivers a word of advice, what would you give them? The first recommendation in an accident would be not to panic and would be to, you don't have a lot of time, to think over your decision real quick and that I believe that your best decision to make is to stay in the truck with a seat belt on because you don't know where a vehicle is going to go or that you can clear a vehicle's wheels if you jump out of it and most of the time people end up getting run over by the vehicle they were in jumping out. Safety is the number one priority with Sanders Trucking. We believe in the proper use of seat belts, the proper use of equipment and the proper training. Seat belts is something that's taken for granted. We don't take seat belts for granted here. Seat belts saved my life. Terry Sanders would be the first to agree that if he hadn't been wearing his seat belt, he wouldn't be alive today. So remember, always wear your seat belt. Until the next edition of MCHA News, be safe.