Health & safety Treating heat stress and resulting disorders
There are a wide range of heat-related illnesses that can affect workers under extended exposure to heat. These illnesses can occur alone or in combination with each other, and can be classified and treated as follows: ■ Heat rash: typically presents in tiny red blisters on the skin. This condition is due to the continuous presence of unevaporated sweat and can be treated by regularly washing and drying the skin, loosening clothing in these sensitive areas and applying powders to keep the skin dry.
■ Sunburn: is a radiation burn to the skin caused by UV-ray exposure, causing the skin to redden and feel feverish, or even blister. Treatment can involve applying cold compresses or moisturising lotions to the affected areas.
■ Heat cramps: are muscle pains or spasms, commonly in the abdomen, arms or legs, and are caused by a low salt level in the muscles due to sweating. This can also be typically treated by removing the affected worker to a cooler area for a few hours after cramps have ceased, and by drinking beverages to increase hydration and replace lost electrolytes.
■ Heat syncope: or heat collapse, occurs when blood pools in the extremities, rather than returning to the heart to be pumped to the brain. After fainting, waiting for normal colour to return to the victim’s face, providing them with water or another form of hydration, and allow the worker time to walk and recover before returning to work.
■ Heat exhaustion: or dehydration, occurs when workers fail to replenish enough fluids and minerals lost during excessive sweating. This can be treated by plenty of rest away from heat and beverages that can replace electrolytes.
■ Heat stroke: or sunstroke, is caused by a failure of the body to sweat which results in an accelerating rise in core temperature – body temperature can soar as high as 41°C or more. Heat stroke can cause irreversible damage and is life threatening, and so should be immediately treated by removing the worker to a cooler area and cooling the skin while seeking treatment from a medical professional without delay.
Source: US Department of Labor
Mine-heavy regions like Northern Australia could see dangerously high temperatures most days by 2100.
All the same, experience shows that mere rules, or even practical experience, are far from sufficient here. When Fogarty collapsed in 2017, after all, Rio Tinto technically had heat policies in place – they just weren’t enforced. More generally, Kenny points out that broad regulations risk clashing with the infinitely subtle circumstances of individual workers. Imagine, he says, two otherwise healthy workers – but one is diagnosed with diabetes. You may not be able to notice at first glance, but once you reach a certain temperature the “person with diabetes
may collapse”, Kenny explains. The same goes for if a worker is older, and therefore more naturally susceptible to exhaustion, or if they’re just too young and inexperienced to know better, and instead rush ahead to complete their work quickly, whatever the consequences for their bodies. With this in mind, it’s no wonder operators are gradually moving away from universal heat stress rules towards a more holistic approach. To an extent, that involves measuring internal and external temperatures – all the better to catch heat stress before it becomes too dangerous. However, if this is increasingly possible using new technology – think sensor-based safety helmets – both Kenny and Yeoman are also enthusiastic advocates of the so-called ‘buddy system’. Pairing two colleagues together, Yeoman explains they can monitor “each other for signs and symptoms of early heat illness”. It goes without saying, moreover, that such close contact makes it far easier to spot diabetes and other hidden ailments before it’s too late.
Feeling the heat Together with regular training sessions – Yeoman argues both supervisors and workers should be refreshed each year – and it’s easy to be optimistic about the future of mining heat stress. That’s doubly true when you consider recent advances in cooling technologies. Rather than needing to lean on grumbling engines, some insiders are instead making use of the local environment. One option involves borrowing cold water from the bottom of a lake. Another encompasses storing winter snow in a pit, or even mixing water with cold air, using the ice that results to keep mine shafts cool. Nor is this just a theoretical solution. In Ontario, to give one example, miners used this approach at the Frood-Stobie facility, which produced nickel from 1955 until 2017. Of course, such tricks are harder to pull in the Australian outback – particularly unfortunate when you remember that climate change is only going to get worse through the rest of the century. “The reality,” Kenny says, “will be we are going to see these temperature extremes, we’re going to see rising temperatures – that means the underground is going to get warmer.” Yeoman makes a similar point about what that’ll mean in practice. “Heat stress will likely be a bigger issue over time,” she warns, adding it could “affect mine efficiency because of the inability of humans to tolerate working in very hot areas for prolonged periods.” Ironically, that last point might kindle the sector to hunt for further solutions. For if Rio Tinto’s treatment of Fogarty suggests workers can sometimes be treated as expendable by this industry, profit never is, no matter how hard the sun is shining. ●
34 World Mining Frontiers /
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