 As a result of a fatal accident involving a minor who was pulled into a conveyor belt roller while cleaning up spilled material, the Mines Safety and Health Administration is suggesting an idea that emphasizes safety and convenience, a drip pan that makes cleaning easy and accessible. IMSA hopes you can utilize this or variations of this idea. Keep up the good work, young fella. Are you all right there, buddy? Are you all right? Yeah, I'm okay. Scared me more than hurt me. You are lucky. Clean up around and under belt drives, take-ups and tail pieces is inconvenient and hazardous due to the confined space and running belt. This type of accident occurs all too frequently in the mining industry every year. Maintenance is generally neglected until the spillage actually interferes with and fouls the operation of the belt. I was just thinking, pick up that conveyor there and pull it under there and it will save you a lot of work. Give me a hand with that. Okay. What else you can do is, if you get one of your friends at the shop, make you a pan, a large pan and we can slip that in there, pull it out easy, make your job a lot easier. Yeah, a pan. Maybe put some wheels on it. That sounds like a pretty good idea. The pan can be fitted with handles or ropes and could include wheels or rollers if desired. This pan would be strategically placed under the point where spillage occurs, drives, take-ups, tail pieces and transfer points. The mining industry is strongly encouraged to adopt this suggestion. Imshah believes that a significant number of unnecessary injuries and fatalities could be avoided in the future as a result. You were right. That does work. Thanks old timer. Who says you can't talk to young kids anymore? Who's he calling old timer? The drip pan suggests the method to promote convenience and, more importantly, promote safety on the job. Another related hazard is the requirement to frequently lubricate moving machinery parts and conveyor belt systems. Now, here's an idea to make that a safer procedure. Greasing elevated conveyors, the underside of large mobile vehicles and other equipment can be made safer and easier for maintenance workers. Use an automated lubrication system, sometimes called an octopus. This consists of a grease pump and grease distribution lines. Provide a catwalk or other means of access to the head pulley. Use a centralized lubrication system supplying lubricant to a single grease fitting. It then feeds a number of grease distribution lines to many loop points. Use a single point automatic lubricator which automatically lubricates a single point for weeks or months at a time. Maintenance work like lubricating equipment can be made safer while also increasing productivity. No more removing and reinstalling guards or shutting down equipment in order to lubricate it. Installing drip pans to clean up spilled material around conveyor belts and an octopus to lubricate machinery and conveyor belt systems are ideas that can easily and quickly be put to use. Since 1998, statistics show that at least 10 miners have lost their lives in accidents where these two simple devices would have prevented their exposure. The Mind Safety and Health Administration encourages you to consider implementing these suggestions to ensure safety and to avoid hazards. For more information on these ideas and other accident remedies, visit the Mind Safety and Health Administration's homepage at www.msha.gov. In a recent fatal accident, a miner was using the remote control to turn the cutter head on a continuous mining machine in order to change the bits. In the past 10 years, three miners have died while attempting to change bits on a continuous miner using this method. The Mind Safety and Health Administration strongly suggests an idea that makes turning the cutter head safe and easy without requiring power on the machine. It is recommended that the machine power be removed by turning off the machine's main circuit breaker, unplug, lock out, and tag the plug. Position and block the cutter head at a convenient height. Hey old timer, do me a favor and check to make sure the power is turned off to this machine or something I want to check on. What are you checking for anyway? Well, I noticed they replaced the bits on the front here, the ones that are easy to reach, but the ones around the back, they're still worn down. You know, you were right about shutting off the power. You never changed the bits with the power on. That's dangerous and you never know where it's going to stop. Hmm, you just give me an idea. I'm going to take a look around the shop area. I'll be right back. Mount a bracket or shoe to which a removable hand crank can be positioned on the minor frame behind the cutter head. Wow, what is this? The hand crank should crank up a reinforced nylon strap, similar to the hand cranks used to pull boats out of the water onto trailers. Hey, look what I found. Let's see if we could use this to our advantage. Take this strap and wrap it around that cutter head. Make sure this end is on real tight. Oh yeah, I think I'm getting the idea now. Now watch this. By cranking the handle, the cutter head can be rotated safely to the desired position to change the cutter bits. Wow, it turns slowly, it turns easily, and you don't even have to turn the power onto the machine to use it. You know, this will work really great in tight spots. Gee, thanks old timer. All right. Using a remote control device to bump or jog the cutter head during maintenance is a dangerous practice. Manually rotating the cutter head to change bits is a method proven to minimize your chances for injury. For more information on accident prevention, check our webpage at www.msha.gov. With the use of proper ventilation and the other means for control and dust, such as water sprays, a miner's environment can be made a safer place to work. But water sprays on mining equipment can become clogged, reducing their effectiveness to control the dust. Water sprays on a continuous miner clogged due to the problems of water traveling through the corrodeable fittings, motor housings, control panels, and into steel manifolds. This was dramatically demonstrated when several spray manifolds were dissected. They showed massive buildups of foreign material, most notably rust, which clogged the sprays. There are alternatives, including a new system especially designed to solve this problem. This is just a demonstration cart so we can take it in the offices of people and show them how it works. We developed this system because we saw a real need because the existing water systems that were out there were not doing the job properly. This system is called the Dust Doctor 2. Also this system here is easy to change. Just pull this clip, lift the spray out, and now you've got it changed. Now one thing I want you to bear in mind. This material here is non-corrosive because it's made out of aluminum, whereas it doesn't oxidize like normal spray blocks that have historically been used in this industry. This thing here, if you've got an extra spray, just take it back to the inner hole, clean it out, bring it back to the machine. If you get a clogged spray, just go ahead and replace the whole manifold. Makes it much easier. Also in this manifold we've got a 30 mesh screen. This screens out everything going into the manifold itself. It's a 30 mesh which is half the size of a number 2 spray. Theoretically anything that would go through this screen should go through that spray. But these vertical sprays are very similar to these right here. In fact they can be the same but they don't have to be the same. So you try to make as many of these manifolds consistent with what's on the machine so you don't have to carry very many spares. But this thing changes real easily just like the other ones do. Pop it like so and you pop it out. And it also has the 30 mesh strainer in it. In this strainer we can pull it out, put it back in, clean it, and off you go again. We have incorporated a couple of ideas in this vertical as time has gone on. Like we've got a rope pin right here. This rope pin is actually, so when we put this clip in, we hit this rope pin with a hammer, it drives it past this clip. And that assures that the clip won't come out. So we've got another backup to keep from losing that vertical spray. We've got a set screw here that we can just crank that and it goes underneath this water spray and there's no way that that water spray can come out. If the clip would come loose it'll catch it right here. Let me talk to you about the rear spray. The one that goes across the throat of the conveyor. This is a spray that has historically kept people in harm's way to change it. Consequently it wasn't changed. It plugged up and it stayed plugged up because nobody wanted to get in to throw that machine to change those sprays. Well, we knew this had to be addressed and here's how we addressed it. We still soft piped, we put a quick disconnect on it. We make a housing that's 41 inches long, 39 in the manifold itself. And we also, we still use the old style quick disconnect because we have access to a hose that's pliable and we can change it. We just still just quick disconnect it, pull it out, stick it out of one end, put it back together and we're back in business. There, as you see, we keep people out of harm's way in changing that spray. That's very important. Also, the rest of the system though is hard piped. This one is soft piped, so you can move the hose. But the ones up here, they're covered, hard piped and you never have to mess with them unless you'd get some tremendous, horrendous fall on top of that machine with mash dumping up here. But normally, you just have to quick change the sprays as we exhibited a while ago. Thanks. This is the Repair Keen Quick Change Water Spray System. Very easy installation to remove. To remove it, all you have to do is remove a roll pin. Taking a hammer, knock the roll pin back. Once you get past the keeper, just remove the keeper. Once the keeper's removed, you'll be able to remove the spray. By removing the spray, you can clean it out real easy. And sometimes you can have another one ready to go back in. It's already clean, so you can get back in the cold quick to install the spray. All you have to do is just slide it back in, lightly tap on it. Your keeper should be aligned. Once it's aligned in, your lock will go in and you can knock your keeper back. This will keep your spray from coming back in. For more information about this and other solutions, visit the Mind Safety and Health Administration webpage at www.msha.gov. Seven miners have died in the past year as a result of not using safety props or blocks while working on equipment that required their full attention. In some instances, the props were not available. Other times, blocks were either not used or were ineffective. These fatalities might have been prevented if mechanical safety props had been installed on the equipment they were using. It's great to get a break from work. Let's go kick some tires and see what's new. It's a beautiful day to go shopping. Look at this model, old timer. It's loaded with extras. Can you raise that bucket up for us? I wonder how high it goes. Hey, can you jog that lever a little bit? I want to see how dangerous that bucket can be. Now that he's raised this thing, we have to make sure that it's propped up, then we can take a closer look and still be safe. Hey, old timer, where are you going with that thing? We have to prop up that bucket. I'll show you. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You don't need that. This time, let me show you something. Wow. Okay. Look at this old timer. It makes life a lot easier. Could you lower that down a little bit? That's it. That's it. How's that for simple, effective, and totally safe? I guess you're never too old to learn something. Who says you can't teach an old timer new tricks? If you thought that was something, I bet you never saw anything like this before. See here? Same thing. Prop goes in place, one, two, three. Here, you try it. Can you raise this bucket up for us too? I see it. Safe, stable, and secure. I like that. When installing a permanent hinged safety prop, remember to size the prop correctly, attach the prop to ensure that it can handle the expected load, design the receiving end of the prop so it cannot kick free or slip out of position when it's being deployed, install props permanently on mobile and stationary equipment so that they are always ready to be used. The permanent installation of safety props will save you time and money during maintenance, and most importantly, it can save your life. So take steps now to equip your mobile and stationary equipment with permanently mounted safety props. If the boom or bucket on a piece of equipment is in the raised position, it should be there for service or repair. Otherwise, the rule to remember is to have it touch the ground. And if it's raised, if it's in the air, prop it securely. For more information, visit our webpage at www.msha.gov. Sometimes the best remedy to solve a problem or to eliminate a potential hazard might be a simple procedure that effectively enhances safety. The Mind Safety and Health Administration highly recommends putting in place a policy that eliminates taking chances, keeping control of a vehicle's keys. Now that the safety meeting is over, we'll have to check you out on some safety items. Oh, I forgot to tell you. I asked the mechanic to check the brakes on this while we were at the safety meeting. I know I get a mechanic the keys. Did you check to see if he's done? He must be done. I didn't see him. Wait just a minute. Is he done for sure or not? Oh, I suppose so. He said it was only going to take a few minutes. That's not good enough. We need to make certain that he's absolutely done and we have to do that before you start this thing. Now, let's do it the right way. Never assume you're in the clear until you've checked it out yourself. The next time someone works on your truck, give the mechanic your keys. Why? Because then he'll have to give them back to you whenever he's done and you can't go far without those keys. Gee, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks old timer. Been there, done that. Now we start at the beginning. First we need to do a pre-op inspection. MSHA encourages all mine operators to adopt the practice of the maintenance person insisting on taking the keys from the operator prior to maintenance on any mobile piece of equipment and not returning them until the work is finished. This new practice would be in addition to standard operating procedures that mines follow before moving mobile equipment such as sounding a horn or alarm, checking mirrors and camera monitors if available, making eye contact and communicating intentions directly to the equipment operator and receiving an audible response using radio communications. Since 1987 there have been 58 fatalities in the mining industry involving large haulage trucks where an adequate visibility was determined to be a contributing factor. The Mine Safety and Health Administration strongly encourages the implementation of a procedure as simple as controlling the keys to a gear and strive for safety at all times.