Cusack, Barry John Charles
Deceased
Barry John Charles Cusack
Demographics
33y, male
Date of death
2004-11-24
Finding date
2009-02-27
Cause of death
Injuries sustained when the Air Trac drill rig toppled over workbench 345, sliding down to a rill 11 metres below and coming to rest 20 metres below the bench
AI-generated summary
Barry John Charles Cusack, a 33-year-old driller operator, died when an Air Trac drill rig he was operating toppled over a mine bench (345) at Mt Norma Mine, Cloncurry, Queensland on 24 November 2004. The drill became unstable after being positioned on rocks to enable drilling at the bench edge, with the boom and mast extended, causing it to tip over an 11-metre drop. Critical clinical-occupational lessons include: inadequate training documentation systems for equipment operators despite on-the-job experience; absence of formal competency assessment criteria despite supervisor certification; lack of formal hazard identification and risk assessments specific to the Air Trac equipment; missing safety engineering controls (bunding) relying instead on supervision and procedures; and insufficient safety and health management systems in small mining operations (fewer than 10 employees). The coroner emphasized that better documented training protocols, formal competency assessments by qualified trainers, appropriate physical safety barriers, and mandatory safety management systems would have substantially reduced risk.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Contributing factors
- Inadequate documented training and competency assessment for Air Trac drill operator
- No formal hazard identification or risk assessment documentation for Air Trac equipment operation
- Absence of safety and health management system at mine (fewer than 10 employees)
- Reliance on soft controls (supervision and procedures) rather than hard engineering controls (safety bunding)
- Drill rig positioned unstably on rocks to reach drilling locations at bench edge
- Uncleared rocks on narrow 7-metre-wide work bench preventing proper positioning
- Lack of safe work instructions or procedures specific to Air Trac operation
- Insufficient evidence that training supervisor was competent to assess competency
- No documentation of how competency was determined or assessed
Coroner's recommendations
- The Mines Inspectorate should consider legislative change for small mines and quarries (those which employ 10 persons or less) to develop and implement a safety and health management system to suit the nature and complexity of the operation
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