Tragic lesson in [mine] safety – by Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – April 5, 2013)

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper.

TIMMINS – By sharing her family’s pain, Lisa Kadosa hopes others can learn from it and avoid a similar tragedy. Kadosa’s father was killed in a mining accident in Sudbury seven years ago. She believes workplace fatalities are frequently the result of avoidable shortcuts.

“We do it all the time. We skip little steps because we think we are invincible. I think by seeing that this does happen, and having a real person up there with tears in their eyes because they’re having to deal with this, can make people really think the next time they’re going to overlook a step.”

Kadosa was one of the keynote speakers at the third-annual Health and Safety Conference put on by the Timmins Regional Labour-Management Joint Health & Safety Committee at the Timmins Inn & Suites Thursday.

Since her father’s death, Kadosa has travelled across country, frequently invited to speak at workplace safety conferences. Kadosa’s father, Robert Nesbitt, was killed at the 2,600 level underground at the Vale Inco Stobie Mine in 2006.

What made his death particularly perplexing was the fact it was the result of what was then a common practice. “Nobody expected a common practice to kill somebody who had been doing the same job for 37 years,” she said.

“There is a sling you use to attach a portable stand to the bucket in a scoop when you transport it from your different sites. That sling is to be removed before you use it.

“But the person who did the shift before my dad couldn’t get it off so he just tucked it under and hid it so nobody could see it. And then when my dad was mucking with the remote control, the sling got caught on to the scoop. The scoop has a 10-second delay when you let go of the remote – which is another thing that was changed after his death – and the scoop continued to move, pulling up the three-tonne stand. He fell and the sling snapped and he was killed instantly.”

While Kadosa tends to have a captive audience for her story in resource industries, she said her safety message is aimed at all sectors.

“It’s to inspire a culture shift to where workplace fatalities, injuries and death are morally, socially and economically unacceptable … In our industry, we don’t call them accidents, we call them incidents because we can prevent them. And the road to zero is attainable and I hope to see it one day in my lifetime.”

Since her father’s death, Kadosa has become a volunteer with Threads of Life.

“Threads of Life is a national charity that is dedicated to help Canadian families living with outcomes of workplace fatalities, life-altering injuries and occupational disease,” she explained.

The organization helped Kadosa cope with her family’s grief.

For the rest of this article, please go to the Timmins Daily Press website: http://www.timminspress.com/2013/04/04/tragic-lesson-in-safety