Light a Cigarette, Kill Your Colleagues

Dave Smith has been an Industrial Maintenance Electrician since 1975. He has taught maintenance, troubleshooting and safety courses to thousands of electricians in mines, mills, refineries, factories, plants, power stations and offshore platforms throughout North America and the Middle East. Dave is a hands-on guy and teache...

We are surrounded by birth and death. When we’re lucky, our own birth and death are the bookends to a long and fulfilling life. Unfortunately, too many are not so lucky.

The Buddhist expression “death comes suddenly” is well marked in industry. I recently visited the site of the closed Westray mine and the memorial to the 26 miners whose deaths came so suddenly. You cannot stand on such ground and not be moved by the monumental tragedy that rocked Plymouth and reverberated throughout Canada.

You will recall that on Saturday May 9, 1992, a methane gas explosion occurred at 5:18 a.m., claiming those 26 lives. Recovery efforts brought forth 15 bodies; unfortunately, those efforts had to be abandoned after underground conditions worsened. To this day, the bodies of the remaining 11 miners remain entombed in the depths of the mine.

Many websites are maintained as a testament to both the victims and the draegermen who risked their own lives searching for survivors and recovering the bodies they could. When you read the trial transcripts, interviews and newspaper accounts, you’ll be chilled to realize—just as I was—the managerial malfeasance that laid the foundation for this disaster. The victims’ average age was 37. The youngest victim was only 22.

But from tremendous harm came tremendous good, because these deaths invoked Bill C-45, and the inclusion of health and safety culpability into our Canadian Criminal Code with Section 219.(1), which states:

Every one is criminally negligent who (a) in doing anything, or (b) in omitting to do anything that it is his duty to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons.

Since C-45 became law, I have heard many stories of managers beating a hasty retreat when realizing an imprudent decision could bring them a visit from the RCMP. Many of them have yet to change their ways, but it is death that comes suddenly—not change. However, it is the good decisions from prudent managers that has collectively saved lives and agony; though this cannot be counted, it can be measured, and furthermore reflects the greatest tribute to the Westray men.

And the lessons from Westray extend beyond those for management. It is a little-known fact that there was evidence of smoking taking place underground. (I recently met someone whose relative was caught smoking at Westray... she says the other guys beat the tar out of him.)

If you do an Internet search for “smoking in coal mines”, you’ll discover that it has led to many deaths, including eight miners in Virginia. That particular incident prompted Virginia’s regulators to enact a law making it a felony to have smoking articles underground, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Mine Safety and Health Administration to start its own campaign.

It’s bizarre to think that anyone would smoke among coal seams that are rich with methane and laden with coal dust, yet it happens. And when they have a smoke without impunity, they do it again, and again, until...

In 1982, I came onto the floor of a drilling rig in the Crowsnet Pass that had reached target depth. There was nothing but an open pipe between the desired formation and the drill floor. A 21-year-old driller was three metres from the hole, casually smoking. My first thought was to run. Were the formation to release a puff of gas, the drill floor would have been enveloped and, ignited by the cigarette, the rig and some of its occupants would have been incinerated.

I cried, “What are you doing!?” and he replied simply, “What do you mean?”.

It turns out the young driller believed the company’s warnings and government edicts prohibiting smoking had nothing to do with health and safety, but rather were part of a vast managerial/governmental conspiracy to prevent him from enjoying a cigarette.

I do not write this column to enlighten conspiracy theorists like the young driller. Instead, I write it for all of you who have—both literally and figuratively—“beat the tar” out of an unsafe coworker, yet continue to work under those circumstances. This column is for any employee—at any level in a company—who sees someone outright risking lives or turning a blind eye to the inappropriate actions of others.

For many of us, our ancestors left foreign shores to build a better life here for themselves, their families and its descendants. Take a look around you: if the job you now work to earn your daily bread is not the better life they wanted for you—if the people around you could be the cause of your death at any given moment—then you need to invoke the spirit of your ancestors and set sail for better shores. Your ancestors, family and descendents expect this of you, and you deserve it, so get moving!

Never forget: death comes suddenly, as it did for these men of Westray (whom we cannot and must not forget): John Thomas Bates, Larry Arthur Bell, Bennie Joseph Benoit, Wayne Michael Conway, Ferris Todd Dewan, Adonis J. Dollimont, Robert Steven Doyle, Remi Joseph Drolet, Roy Edward Feltmate, Charles Robert Fraser, Myles Danial Gillis, John Philip Halloran, Randolph Brian House, Trevor Martian Jahn, Laurence Elwyn James, Eugene W. Johnson, Stephen Paul Lilley, Micheal Frederick MacKay, Angus Joseph MacNeil, Glenn David Martin, Harry Alliston McCallum, Eric Earl McIsaac, George James Munroe, Danny James Poplar, Romeo Andrew Short and Peter Francis Vickers.

Until next time, be ready, be careful and be safe.