On Jan. 25 at approximately 9:30 a.m. a haul truck overturned at Teck’s Greenhills Operation sending the driver to hospital via STARS Air Ambulance. Emergency crews were called to the industrial accident where the overturned quarry hauler had trapped the driver inside the cabin.
The 30-year-old driver was transported to the Foothills Hospital in Calgary with serious but non-life threatening injuries.
The vehicle the worker was driving was a large quarry-sized vehicle. Haul trucks are heavy construction vehicles that can transport capacities from 36 tonnes to 363 tonnes. Truck weight in the mining industry is usually within the range 240 to 340 tonne trucks. The vehicles look similar to the “Titan” truck that is on display in Sparwood, the haul truck involved in this incident was a 240 tonne vehicle.
The company is investigating the incident on the mine that’s just north of Sparwood.
“We take any incident involving employee safety seriously,” said Teck’s Senior Communication Specialist, Chris Stannell, to the Calgary Herald. “We immediately notified all the regulatory authorities.”
While the cause of the accident is not yet known, and while the RCMP in Sparwood was notified of the accident, because it occurred on private land they were not called to the scene.
The Greenhills operation is one of Teck’s five steelmaking coal operations in the Elk Valley. The site processes coal and exports it to overseas markets like the Asia-Pacific region. The materials are carried from the operation by rail to Vancouver where it is loaded on to ships headed to market. The location of the mine is around eight kilometers northeast of Elkford.