HAND AND FINGER PROTECTION

Some of the most common injuries are mashed, lacerated, broken, and bruished hands and fingers. Certain materials such as pieces of rock, lumps of coal, rough timbers, rails, and steel beams cannot be handled safely without gloves to protect the hands and fingers.

Gloves should be worn when material that may injure a workman's hand or fingers is handled. Gloves with snug-fitting wristbands are preferable to those with wide cuffs. Machinery should not be adjusted or oiled while in motion; where it cannot be stopped and such work must be done while it is in motion, gloves should not be worn because of the possibility of trapping the gloved hand and causing serious injury before the hand can be extricated.

FIGURE 27.-Miners Working on Track; They Are Wearing Protective Hats, Goggles, and Safety Shoes and Are Equipped With Permissible Electric Cap Lamps and Self-rescuers

SAFE CLOTHING

Haulagemen and others who work around machinery should wear snug-fitting clothing and should tuck their trouser legs inside boots, puttees, or socks or otherwise fasten them. When wearing electric cap lamps, they should conceal the lamp cables beneath their clothing. Loose shirt sleeves, trousers and overalls, neckties, etc., of employees working around moving machines or parts of machines have caused numerous accidents; the above recommendation is made to reduce this hazard. Figure 28 illustrates the danger of wearing loosefitting clothing when operating an electric drill.

It has been common practice for coal-mine employees to wear any kind of clothing no longer serviceable for outdoor use. This has resulted in many fatalities and injuries to machinemen, motormen, trip riders, mechanics, miners, and outside employees. All clothing worn by mine employees should be comfortable and safe and should be kept in good repair and free of holes and loose ends.

VALUE OF PROTECTIVE CLOTHING

The following examples are typical cases indicating how protective clothing has prevented serious injury or death.

1. A coal miner working in a pillar stump was setting timber in the place when a post, which was supporting a crossbar, "sprung out" and struck the miner

on the head and face. The post undoubtedly "sprung" because of increased roof pressure. The workman was wearing a protective hat, the peak of which received the main force of the post; the hat broke, but the miner escaped with a slight bruise of the forehead. Without the protective hat this accident undoubtedly would have resulted in a serious head injury, possibly a fatality. 2. A miner was loading coal into a car when some roof slate fell in the room. Fortunately, he was wearing a protective hat; his injuries consisted of a bruised shoulder and ankle. The hat probably saved him from a serious head injury. 3. A topman wearing a protective hat at a shaft mine was rerailing a mine car on the surface near the shaft. The car swung suddenly and caught him between it and a post supporting a trolley wire. The hard shell and the cushioned lining of the hat saved the workman's head from being crushed. The safety director at this mine stated that this accident undoubtedly would have resulted in a fatality if the man had not been wearing a protective hat.

4. An aerial tramway (bucket line) used for transporting coal from the mine to the tipple operated up and down a mountain alongside an inclined plane which was used for hauling men and supplies. Two miners were riding up the incline in a car; one was wearing a protective cap, and the other was wearing a cloth cap. A bucket overloaded with coal was being transported to the tipple when a large lump of coal fell from it. The lump rolled down the hillside, evidently struck some object in its path, bounced into the air, struck the head of the man wearing the protective hat and then the head of the man wearing the cloth cap. The man wearing the protective hat, although struck first, was uninjured, whereas the other man was so seriously injured that he never fully recovered from the blow and later was awarded total-disability compensation. 5. A miner wearing a protective hat was working in a place where the coal was 12 feet thick and was cut about 4 feet from the bottom. Part of the cut face weighing about 600 pounds fell from the vicinity of the roof and struck the miner on the back of the head. He was shoveling at the time, and the force of the blow knocked him to the floor. The only injury sustained was that caused by his fall, a cut from the bridge of his nose to the top of his forehead. The man lost 1 week of work because of the facial injury. The attending physician and the miner were convinced that the protective hat saved a life in this instance.

6. A workman in a mine had his foot caught in a coal conveyor, but the steel toe of his protective shoe was so strong that it bent the bottom part of the conveyor and spread it so that the injury was slight-only a bruised instep. No bones were broken, and no time was lost. The mine superintendent stated that if the workman had not been wearing protective shoes he unquestionably would have lost some toes or possibly his entire foot.

7. While attempting to board a moving locomotive, a mine workman lost his footing, and a wheel passed over his left foot. He was wearing protective shoes which were old and had thin soles. The upward pressure of the sole caused a simple fracture of the great toe. The fourth and fifth toes were fractured; the latter had to be amputated. The steel toecap usually does not cover the two small toes, but in this instance it protected the three large toes and prevented amputation of half the foot.

8. A repairman wearing protective goggles was removing a broken trolley pole from its metal socket. He was driving out the broken part with a sledge and a brass rod. A piece of the brass rod broke off, struck his goggles, and shattered a lens but did not injure his eye.

9. A tracklayer in a mine was enlarging a bolthole in a rail with a sledge hammer and a drift pin which had a mushroom head. A chip flew from the head of the drift pin, struck a lens of his goggles, and shattered the lens, but did not injure his eye.

10. A machinist in a mine repair shop was sharpening a cutting tool on a power-driven grinder. The tool had a flaw in it, and a piece broke off and struck the workman's safety goggles with considerable impact. A lens of the goggles was shattered, but the machinist's eyes were protected and no injury resulted.

UNDERGROUND PROTECTION

MINING, DRILLING, AND LOADING MACHINES

Mining-, drilling-, and loading-machine operators should not operate their equipment when any persons are near enough to be endangered. It is virtually impossible for an operator to keep a close watch over the machine's movement and at the same time look after the safety of one or more spectators. If possible, the operator of any caterpillar-tread-mounted machine should ride on the step provided for that purpose when the machine is being trammed; this precaution will avoid injury to the operator from the side slip of the caterpillars from the mine rails.

Mining machines should not be loaded on their trucks or trammed unless the cutter chains are equipped with adequate locking devices to prevent accidental movement of the chains and bits. The end bits of the cutter bar also should be guarded or removed because exposed bits may injure persons who may come in contact with them. Figure 29 shows mining-machine men changing bits. (Note the locking device to prevent rotation of the cutter chain.)

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