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‘Sliding Doors’– former miners reflect on life and death decisions

14th January 2019

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The voices in this month’s podcast provide a powerful endorsement of Active Training Team’s commitment to creating realistic scenarios, which expose participants to the potential real-life situations that can lead to incidents.

ATT’s EPIC safety induction day for Tideway elicited an emotional reaction from a group of Yorkshire miners, now working as tunnellers on London’s £5 billion ‘Super Sewer’ project. Facilitator, Laura Forrest-Hay, was prompted to suggest they share their powerful stories with Adam Christopher.

Chris, Robbie and Tony reflect on a tragic – and avoidable – fatality which had terrible consequences for the miners at the Maltby Colliery near Rotherham in South Yorkshire. One man lost his life and many others were deeply affected by that loss. They speak about the camaraderie and sense of community which exists amongst those working underground, the importance of effective training and how having a healthy wariness is vitally important, as experience can sometimes lead to complacency.

Adam discusses their story within the context of James Reason’s Swiss Cheese metaphor where both latent and active failures at Maltby Colliery contributed to this tragic loss of life.

The miners provide a stark reminder that being solely reliant on procedure is not enough; workplace culture, informed by behaviour and attitudes as well as the procedures needs to be strong, robust and, importantly, caring, in order to keep people safe and healthy.

Please do let us know what you think of the podcast by subscribing and reviewing on iTunes. Episode 4 ‘Sliding Doors’ is also available on our podcast page.