Mine rescue workers deal with a surface fire. Image courtesy Facebook.
Emergency response teams from 15 mines across the province put their skills to the test at the 49th Annual Emergency Response/Mine Rescue Skills Competition in Saskatoon this past weekend.
The competition puts emergency crews into different situations dealing with possible scenarios such as first aid, fire fighting, practical skills and surface and underground mine problems.
Chris Stansfield works with Areva Resources at their McLean Lake site and is the chair of the organizing committee for the event and says the competition also allows individual crews see how they perform under stress. “Our crews train every week and they are all volunteers who are committed to safety,” said Stansfield.
He said the teams are ready to deal with a wide range of situations ranging from building fires, hazardous materials occurrence and extraction of miners from confined spaces. Stansfield says every situation is different, especially between surface mines and underground mines.
“If you can imagine dealing with a fire underground, where there is a huge area with a different atmosphere, that’s not really good for anyone,” said Stansfield. He said practice makes perfect in preparing for situations like that.
Stansfield says changing technology in the mining industry means that the response teams have to update their gear and techniques as well. “There’s always a different piece of equipment that comes out to make things more efficient and easier for the response teams to do their jobs properly,” he added. “But it’s always good to have the knowledge of doing it the old school way as well, in case you have to fall back on that. It all depends on the situation they are in.”
He says safety is first and foremost on the minds for the entire mine industry, especially when it comes to mine responses. He says if there is a situation where people have to be removed from an area and it can be done remotely with a machine that would be the first choice of responders. He says before any rescue is begun, they will assess the hazards of the situation.
“It’s no good having your team go into a problem area and not thinking and someone might get injured,” he said. “So all of a sudden you’ve got one less rescuer and you have to deal with that injured person.”
The overall winners was the team from PotashCorp Patience Lake, while Cameco Key Lake were runners up. The underground winner was Mosaic Esterhazy K1 while Areva McClean Lake won the surface firefighting award.