An official with Claude Resources is confirming an accident on Sunday seriously injured a worker at its Seabee gold mine northeast of La Ronge.
President and CEO Neil McMillan has declined to spell out exactly what happened — but the injuries were serious enough that the worker was airlifted to a Saskatoon hospital for treatment.
McMillan says an internal investigation is underway, and Occupational Health and Safety is also investigating.
He adds the first draft of the internal probe is already complete, but the company now has to sit down with OHS to go over it.
McMillan is not sure how long that could take.
He says avoiding workplace injuries isn’t something the company takes lightly:
“We take it so seriously. And then when we get one of these, everybody’s really concerned about it. We’re always very frustrated and very anxious about how we could have prevented it — because all of these are preventable in hindsight — and what can we do to ensure it doesn’t happen again. And then, more importantly, are there other dangers out there that we can try and predict?”
In 2008, the company was handed a notice of contravention by OHS and order to re-train its workers on signage after a 29-year-old male worker died at the Seabee mine in an accident the year before.
The file was then passed on to the Ministry of Justice, but no charges were laid.
Claude Resources previously pleaded guilty to failing to provide for the safety of a worker following another fatal mishap at the mine in 1995.
The company was fined $210,000.