Show safety in n hoisting ho st ing an and d slope baula haulage Ha ula BY 0 P HOOD the practice of mining usually requires transportation of men and material in both horizontal and vertical directions iman lias has pretty thoroughly accustomed himself to the means of horizontal transportation and the risks of the road and the car are assumed naturally and without fear transportation in vertical directions however is far less ancient and universal in the experience of mankind and the dread and fear of falling is a primal instinct yielding but slowly to the experience of successful vertical transportation por tation that man by a universal experience in aerial transportation is to finally become so familiar with the possibility lity of falling from great heights that lie he will assume the risks of the road with the same equanimity as we now cross a crowded thoroughfare or take the night express may be a possibility but at present there is an instinctive fear accompanying the lifting and lowering of men that is not present when transportation is in horizontal directions aj A man who would never think of examining the coupling arrangements range ments of a railroad train looks with suspicion on the inch and a half steel rope that is to lower his pounds of self a few hundred feet into a mine the human huahn factor safety in hoisting as in most other activities is dependent upon both men and mechanism the division of the responsibility between these two is the object of this paper the bureau of mines will issue S shortly a study by R H kudlich of shaft and slope accidents that have taken place in the coal mines of pennsylvania west virginia ohio and illinois in the ten year period from 1904 to 1911 1 in this safety field as in most others the human factor is the main factor if man had succeeded in controlling himself as well as he has succeeded so far in controlling the mechanism of hoisting shaft and slope accidents would have been one third less of I 1 accidents are so reported as to make it possible to locate the blame as between men or mechanism of these accidents 66 per cent were due to human 1 limitations irn it and 34 per cent to some failure of mechanism chan ism in 35 per cent of the accidents the victim was himself responsible it can be said that of three men injured in these accidents one had himself only to blame one suffered because of the failure of a fellow employee and one suffered because of defective mechanism the miner therefore who is using or who is about the hoisting facilities of a mine is equally interested in three factors his own carefulness second chief mechanical E engineer united states bureau of mines P paper aper delivered before anual safety congress at detroit october the carefulness and ability of his mates and third the adequacy of the companas comp anys equipment the company interested in reducing shaft and slope accidents will find that there is twice as much need for revision of the habits thoughts and practices of the men as there is of making any change in the equipment kinds of accidents the kind of accidents in which the injured man is himself more largely responsible are those such as the 10 per cent injured in falling down the shaft the 6 61 per cent caught between the cage and shaft timbers the 5 per cent who fell off cages while riding and the 5 per cent struck by slope or haulage ropes the remedy for these accidents must be found in the general propaganda which teaches men to think safety together with the elimination of the habitually careless and of those conditions which produce mental and physical mality accidents for which a fellow employee is more largely responsible are those such as the 13 per cent caught in over winding accidents and the 7 per cent injured by heing being struck by or while riding on runaway cars prevention to entirely prevent these accidents requires infallible humanity ilium anity or the development of accessory mechanism that will prevent the individual from doing the wrong thing and will supplement his ineffective effort here again the individual must be at his best physically and mentally anything which helps to produce a subnormal condition in a faithful and intelligent employee should receive careful study and be eliminated if possible this leads the investigator vesti gator into every field affecting the individual n health wages housing normal pleasures decent living diet the prohibition of artificial stimulants and drugs etc etc it may be too much to hope to produce ideal men inen and conditions but it is necessary to face the fact that these human problems are the big end of the problem Over winding devices are needed that are reliable and practical and that will not interfere with normal operation too often the devices provided are ineffective or are disconnected in large hoists some of them may when operated even wreck the mechanism standard recording signal system should be developed so that misunderstanding of signals will be next to impossible and a permanent record made of the signals as given where mechanism is at fault the kind of accidents where the mechanism is largely at fault are suen accidents as runaway cars on slopes account ing for 9 per cent of tle the injuries breaking or ropes 7 per cent being struck by slope or haulage ropes per cent most of these accidents are on slopes per cent of accidents on slopes or haul age ways are charged to failure of equipment while in shaft accidents less than 9 per cent are so chargeable this is probably due to the more severe conditions imposed on slope and haulage ropes and to the absence of means on slopes of something comparable to safety catches in vertical hoists to reduce accidents from defective mechanism requires first of all frequent careful orderly and formal inspection of all mechanism and second the development of standards of condition that can be imparted by one to another this latter need becomes very evident to any one attempting to obtain from practical men about a mine definite directions for condemning a hoisting rope the practice in this respect is arbitrary and variable and only once in in my experience have I 1 heard directions so clearly given that an intelligent assistant could inspect a rope and report whether it should or should not come off in attempting to reduce shaft and slope accidents it is useful to know the major problems which should demand demana first and greatest attention these are shown to be human problems first and can be summed up in the phrase keeping good men fit the problems of mechanism are more largely matters of efficient inspection rather than of design or material although these latter factors are strong minor subjects |