DEVELOPMENT OF NIOSH HARD-ROCK SAFETY TRAINING MATERIALS

Elaine T. Cullen

Spokane Research Laboratory, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 

Spokane, WA
ABSTRACT

Safety training materials appropriate for specific

underground noncoal operations in the United States are

often outdated or nonexistent. The Spokane Research

Laboratory (SRL) of the National Institute for Occupational

Safety and Health has developed several new training tools,

including three videos on common underground activities,

software that will allow trainers to create a virtual training

mine using their own mine map, and toolbox training

materials. SRL is working closely with industry in the

development of these tools. Teams of safety professionals

are involved in the early stages, and actual mines and miners

are involved throughout the production phase. This presentation describes the development process and results of

SRL’s safety training projects.

INTRODUCTION

Shortly after the move from the U.S. Bureau of Mines to

the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

(NIOSH), the Spokane Research Laboratory (SRL) held a

series of stakeholder meetings in various mining districts in

the western United States (the Pittsburgh Research

Laboratory was holding a similar set of meetings in the eastern United States). The objectives of these meetings were

simple: To gather information from customers to help guide

a research program that was diminished both in size and in

scope from that conducted by the Bureau, and to open

communication lines between the new Office for Mine

Safety and Health Research (OMSHR) and its customers.

Meetings were planned to allow input from different segments of the industry, including vein mines, surface and

underground coal mines, industrial minerals mines, surface

and underground metal/nonmetal mines, stone, etc.

Participation was generally by invitation and included safety

professionals, engineering staff, miners’ representatives, and

any others who could provide information on the mission

that the laboratories had under NIOSH—namely, worker

safety and health issues. Participation at each meeting was

kept to between 8 and 22 people, and a trained facilitator

moderated the meetings. 

As expected, most meetings brought out the more

common safety and health concerns of the mining industry,

such as the effects on workers of exposure to diesel fumes,

ground control in deeper mines, or man-machine interface

problems. One of the unanticipated concerns voiced at

every meeting was the huge gap perceived between existing

safety training materials and what was needed, particularly

as the mining population aged and new workers began

entering the field. A pattern began to emerge, and in mid1998, SRL staff put together a mini-proposal to begin filling

that gap for the hard-rock mining industry. 

APPROACH

The mining industry is hardly homogeneous and neither

is the safety training problem. To gather additional information on what the most serious issues were, a team made up

primarily of safety training specialists—regional safety

directors, members of the Central Mine Rescue organization,

and a mine safety and rescue training group that included

people from several Western states—was put together.

Mine managers were also asked to provide input, and a

prioritized list was developed that identified gap areas.

Because the problem of safety training was considered

multifaceted, it was decided to attempt to cover the most

serious gaps fairly quickly and address more complex issues

on a longer-term basis. Examples of topics that were

considered to be critical were handling explosives, working

around mobile equipment and powered haulage, eye injuries,

and new miner orientation in general.

Discussions at the stakeholder meetings revealed some

interesting demographic issues. According to participants,

the average age of miners in the country is around 50. This

means that a large percentage of the mining workforce is

nearing retirement. The big concern was over who would

train new miners if the experienced miners all left over a

relatively short time. More importantly, how could the

wisdom and knowledge of these “expert miners” be captured

before they left so that new miners could benefit long after

the experts were gone. 

Another concern of both stakeholders and the investigative team was addressing the significant differences in

learning styles of new trainees. Contrary to a fairly passive

“seat-work” approach to learning common in the past 30

years, new trainees had a strong preference for interactive,

hands-on-type learning. They generally have a strong

affinity for high tech as well, contrary to older miners, who

often can be described as “computer-phobic.” 

Armed with this customer input, SRL researchers set out

to find some solutions. The projects initially funded fell into

two main categories: development of safety training videos

with accompanying “tips for trainers” and use of computergenerated “virtual mines” to create any training scenario.

Projects were added later, such as “tailgate training” for use

in sand and gravel operations and computerized accident

reconstruction in which a trainee could analyze an accident

from a variety of visual perspectives to determine possible

causes more accurately.

Safety Training Videos

Videos generally fall into the category of passive training

materials. Unless pauses for discussion are built into the

video, trainees merely sit and watch. In spite of this drawback, safety trainers consider videos to be very useful tools.

It was believed, however, that very few were current enough

to be relevant or specific to underground noncoal mining.

(The Mine Safety and Health Administration has produced

some very good videos for the coal industry, but these were

not considered to be of much use to noncoal miners.)

According to the members of the team, if videos were going

to be truly effective, they needed to be focused, realistic,

include some device to stimulate interest such as humor or

fear, and easy to use. 

To actually produce effective training videos, it was

critical that SRL have the cooperation of the mining industry

in the form of access to mining locations, equipment, and

employees. Several mines agreed to collaborate on this

project. Because SRL does not employ professional

videographers, a commercial studio was contracted to gather

the footage and edit the results into concise videos under the

direction of the SRL project leader. Currently, SRL has over

50 hours of raw footage shot in underground hard-rock

mines. This material has been recognized as a valuable

resource in its own right. This footage has been used in

numerous other projects, from explaining research to
Figure 1.—Loading explosives at the mine face

Figure 2.—Filming the ground support video

Figure 3.—A “virtual miner” 

describing details of mining operations.

SRL has completed three training videos. These follow

the mining cycle, beginning with breaking rock, checking

the back for loose rock and barring down any found, and

installing ground supports before workers begin loading out

the rock. The three videos are—

Explosives Underground – Handling Explosives in

Modern Mines (15 minutes) (figure 1)

Rock Falls – Preventing Rock Falls in Underground

Mines (20 minutes)

Miner Mike saves the Day – or- Ground Support...It’s

Important (33 minutes) (figure 2)

A fourth video entitled Hazards in Motion – Working

Around Mobile Equipment is in the development stage and

will be released in 2001. 

All of these videos share certain characteristics. All are

specific to underground hard-rock mining, all are shot totally

in operating underground mines, and all use real miners to

tell the story. Interest in these training tools by the mining

industry has been very strong, and over 600 copies of each

video are currently in circulation. (SRL provides copies free

of charge to safety training professionals.) As a result of

numerous requests from industry representatives, plans are

also under way to translate the videos into Spanish.

SRL has developed an accompanying “Tips For The

Trainer” guide for both the explosives and the rock falls

videos. These are laminated cards designed to fit into the

jacket of the video. These cards provide an outline of

important points in the video, as well as suggestions for

activities or questions for discussion.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) is an excellent tool for teaching

hazard recognition and mine evacuation. It is usually

difficult to re-create actual mine hazards, and placing

inexperienced miners into these conditions is not wise. By

using a virtual mine, however, trainees can be placed into

extremely hazardous, even death-threatening, situations

without harm. 

When first investigating the applicability of VR to mine

safety training, SRL realized some important factors that

would play into the eventual acceptance of this medium.

Few mines had training rooms equipped with high-end

computers, and fewer still had the resources to either

purchase these machines or upgrade existing computers to

run high-end graphics. It was decided, therefore, to look at

the feasibility of using low-cost gaming software as the

training platform upon which to build the mine scenarios.

The program that was eventually selected costs $15 (US),

which places it well within the cost range for most

companies. Another factor was that, while creating a mine

with a variety of hazards that might be encountered was

useful, it would be much more effective if each miner could

be trained in a virtual mine that was similar, or even

identical, to the one where he/she worked. This meant the

software needed to be compatible with common mapping

software, such as AutoCAD, so that an existing mine map

could be overlain upon the software and the virtual mine

created would look like the existing mine. After developing

the more common tools or equipment encountered

underground, a virtual mine could be constructed that was a

replica of the real one (figure 3).

The prototype software developed at SRL allows the

trainee to begin the exercise in the training or safety room

where safety equipment is picked up. This equipment is, of
Figure 4.—A reconstructed haulage truck

Figure 5.—Small sand and gravel operation

course, dependent on the training scenario and could include

mine rescue gear if that is what the virtual mine requires.

Problems presented to the trainees can be simple or quite

complex, requiring the interaction of team members who

can’t see each other, but who are linked by a computer

network. This medium can be adapted for new- miner

training, 8-hour refresher training, or specific training

classes such as mine rescue. Beta tests of this training tool

have shown that VR is extremely popular with younger

miners, but that older miners are sometimes reluctant to try

it. This merely reinforces what mine operators have said:

That the mining population is increasingly bimodal in its

demographics, and that younger and more mature miners

show very different preferences in how they learn or how

they address tasks. VR is well suited to younger miners, but

training videos have been more popular with the more

experienced miners.

Computerized Accident Reconstruction

Serious injuries and deaths in the mining industry are

usually heavily documented. Investigations and analyses

seek to identify the causes of the incident, but the text-based

reports that result are often long and difficult to digest. The

causes, therefore, may not be clearly understood, and one of

the goals of safety training—hazard recognition—goes

unmet. The goal of SRL’s Computerized Accident Reconstruction project is to give an investigator the opportunity to

re-create serious incidents using computer modeling and

visualization (figure 4). The entire incident can then be

played back, with investigators having the option of placing

themselves in different locations in the scene, so the accident

can be more clearly understood. Once this is done, the

situation can be used as a training tool, with trainees viewing

the computer-generated animation to identify the causes and

effects of the incident and to discuss or determine the proper

way to avoid such occurrences in the future.

Toolbox Training for Sand and Gravel Mines

Problems encountered by small sand and gravel

operations are often vastly different from those common to

larger mines. Smaller operations can be seasonal in nature

and generally do not have access to formal training rooms

with computers or other training media (figure 5). Staff

may be limited, and a dedicated safety trainer on that staff is

uncommon. With MSHA’s re-emphasis of CFR Part 46 in

relation to sand and gravel operators, it was obvious that this

segment of the industry needed some tools that met its

unique needs. SRL researchers have been working collaboratively with other NIOSH researchers to develop “toolbox”

or “tailgate” training to close that gap. These short,

practical modules can be presented by the owner or

supervisor in sessions as short as 10 to 15 minutes and do

not require a computer, VCR, or training room to be

effective. This project is focusing on identifying those areas

of particular concern to small operators, developing short

modules to meet those concerns, and evaluating the effectiveness of toolbox training. The resulting toolbox will

enable these operators to comply with CFR Part 46 and to

train their employees in work practices that will keep them

safe. 

CONCLUSION

There is no doubt that safety training will continue to

play a significant role in the mining industry as the needs of

miners and the industry change over time. SRL is relatively

new to this arena, having only begun its work in training

development in mid-1998, but the products that have been

developed to date have been enthusiastically welcomed by

the industry. The three videos released so far, for example,

are being shown in over a dozen countries, with new

requests coming in regularly. In addition, the industry has

been very open to collaborating with researchers in the

development of new tools. Stakeholders who initially

brought the issue of training to the attention of NIOSH

researchers have been actively involved in the process of

finding a solution. It is this collaborative effort that both

strengthens and validates SRL’s role in the development of

safety training tools and techniques. Through this spirit of

cooperation, industry and government together can move

toward the goal stated by the NIOSH/OMSHR

mission...Safety and health at work for all the nation’s

miners.