A shotfirer on foot was struck by a reversing mobile processing unit. The regulator’s first account, and the five things it says mine operators must do

In August we reported a fatality with a similar description, a blast crew member struck by a mobile processing unit, from the regulator’s weekly incident summary for the week ending 31 July. The release does not name the mine, and it gives the incident date as 3 August 2026. We have not reconciled the two and we do not treat them here as the same record. This piece is about the release alone.

What the regulator says happened

The release’s account is short and we set it out in the regulator’s own terms. Mine workers and contractors at an open-cut coal mine were loading blastholes with explosives on a drill pattern in preparation for blasting activities. The worker, a contract shotfirer, was assisting a mobile processing unit (designated MPU027) with loading emulsion into blastholes. During this task the worker was on foot and located to the right of the MPU at the emulsion hose.

A second mobile processing unit (designated MPU026) was situated in the adjacent row to the right of the worker at about 1:00 pm. MPU026 had reached the high wall at the end of the drill pattern and commenced reversing towards the location of the worker. The reversing activity was supervised by a spotter. Then: After reversing approximately 50 metres, MPU026 was adjacent to MPU027 when it struck the worker who suffered fatal injuries.

That is the whole of the account. The worker is not named, and neither is the mine or its operator. The release attributes no cause and no fault to anyone, and nothing here should be read as doing so. The order in which the regulator lists its safety points below is the regulator’s, and we draw no inference from it about what happened on the drill pattern.

What the investigation will look at

The regulator says it has commenced an investigation to determine the cause and circumstances of the incident. It will examine the effectiveness of controls to eliminate or minimise risks to health and safety arising from mobile plant and pedestrian interactions, including the adequacy of:

• Planning and coordinating mobile plant activity
• Communication protocols leading up to the incident
• Risk assessments, work instructions and procedures for the involved plant, equipment and work task
• The practicability of proximity detection and collision avoidance technology as a control measure
• Instruction, training, experience and supervision of the workers
• The mine operator’s contractor management plan
• The mine operator’s safety management system including principal hazard management plans and associated control plans and procedures governing the management of hazards and risks associated with blasting activities, and mobile plant and pedestrian interactions.

These are the questions the investigation will ask, not answers to them. The release says The mine operator and other parties are assisting with the investigation and that A report will be published when the investigation is concluded. The regulator’s announcement of 28 August said: The investigation is ongoing.

The safety information, in full

The announcement says the release outlines the circumstances of the incident to share early learnings. The release itself carries no section headed learnings or recommendations; its advice sits under Safety information. It reminds mine operators of their duty to identify hazards and manage risks under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 and the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Act 2013 and Regulations, then says that In particular, mine operators must:

1. Provide workers with appropriate instruction and supervision to ensure effective positive communications are maintained by operators and pedestrians
2. Ensure that spotters are effectively used to assist reversing mobile plant
3. Consider and, where reasonably practicable, incorporate the use of available technology to control mobile plant and pedestrian interactions such as proximity detection and collision avoidance systems
4. Consider the potential for mobile plant and pedestrian interactions when designing and sequencing work on drill patterns, including the loading of explosives, and develop effective controls to maintain separation
5. Ensure that the risk controls for mobile plant and pedestrian interactions are being adequately monitored and verified by safety management system review and auditing mechanisms

For workers it adds that Workers are reminded of their duty to take care for their own health and safety and that of their co-workers, and that They must also comply with reasonable work instructions, policies and procedures.

Each of the five has a counterpart in earlier guidance

The release lists six documents under further information. We read three of them end to end: a 2020 safety alert, a 2021 compliance program report and the July 2025 technical reference guide for roads and other vehicle operating areas. Each of the five points has a counterpart in at least one of them, which means a mine operator can check itself against published detail rather than against a one-line reminder.

Quotations are verbatim from the documents named in the sources list. The pairing of each point with earlier guidance is ours.

Two things the release adds

It names the drill pattern. The fourth point is specific to blasting: separation has to be designed into how work on a drill pattern is laid out and sequenced, including explosives loading. The text of the 2025 vehicle interaction guide, all 32 pages, does not mention blasting or explosives at all. Our reading, offered as a view rather than a finding: on a bench being loaded, the shotfirer at the hose and the units moving along the rows are working in the same space by design, so separation there is a planning question for whoever sequences the pattern, not only a road rule.

It puts the technology question to people on foot. When the regulator surveyed proximity awareness and collision avoidance technology at 29 surface coal mines or coal handling facilities between September and December 2021, it found four had implemented it, six were implementing it and a further 12 were actively planning to. That accounts for 22 of the 29; the report does not say where the other seven stood. Its key findings framed the hazard as mobile plant collisions, considering both heavy and light vehicles. The release asks operators to consider the same technology to control mobile plant and pedestrian interactions. Those 2021 figures are almost five years old and we do not know what they are now.

What a mine operator can check now

This is general information drawn from the regulator’s own documents, not legal or safety advice for any particular site. Read against the release and the 2025 guide, the questions it raises for anyone loading shots with mobile processing units are:

• Does the shot loading plan say where people on foot will be, row by row, while units move and reverse along the pattern, and how separation is kept when units pass each other?
• Does every person working at a unit have a positive means of talking to the operator of every unit that could move near them, not only the unit they are working with?
• Is the spotter’s role defined: what they can see, who they can stop, and how?
• Has proximity detection or collision avoidance for people on foot been assessed for these units, with the reasoning written down whichever way it went?
• Do contractor crews, including contract shotfirers, work under the same communication and separation rules as the operator’s own crews, and is that verified on the bench rather than only in the plan?

We will report the investigation report when the regulator publishes it.