The John T. Ryan Trophy is an annual safety award presented to metalliferous mines which in the previous year experience the lowest reportable injury frequency per 200,000 hours worked in Canada. Bellon was selected from Toburn because he had worked there for 18 years without a compensable accident. The Toburn Mine in 1948 was the only mine in Canada without a single major compensable accident. That Saturday night, Bellon had listened to a speech by Angus Campbell, President of the Mines Accident Prevention of Ontario. Even we of the mining industry wonder at such a record.
Many people wonder if there is such a record.
Mining can be a dangerous business. Too often in the past, accidents have taken their grim toll of broken limbs and life itself. Five days later Bellon was dead, killed instantly by a three-ton rock fall at Toburn. The rock had crushed him against the side of a stope. He was a timberman and a shift boss at Toburn.