Myra Falls Places Second in 2009 Provincial Mine Rescue Competition
The 2009 provincial mine rescue competition was held near Squamish BC at the Britania Beach Mining museum grounds. The competition serves to showcase the skills of the mine rescue volunteers from the various mines throughout the province and is a valuable training tool for new members. Training takes place throughout the year so that the teams maintain their familiarity with the breathing apparatus and rescue procedures. Teams from Quinsam Coal, New Afton Gold and Bull River Minerals competed against us in the underground competition with Quinsam coal winning the overall this year. NVI placed second overall this year with a win in the donning bench task, second in the practical bench, first aid and written tasks and third in the obstacle and fire tasks.
Myra Falls Operations is no stranger to success when it comes to mine rescue competition. MFO teams have been the provincial champions 11 times: in 1977, 1979, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2008. With a number of new members to the team this year, MFO competed strongly and proudly. The team will compete in the Western Regional competition to be held in September in Fernie, British Columbia.
Breakwater Resources Ltd. is extremely proud of the success of the MFO 2009 Provincial Mine Rescue team. The practice of Mine Rescue is crucial to our industry and the dedication and commitment of its members to this noble task is highly commended.
The 2009 Mine Rescue team consists of: Gary Boutilier – Captain, Keith Notter – Vice Captain, Pat Langlois – Coordinator, Al Butler - # 2 Man, Todd Gonsky # 3 Man, Rob Eccles # 4 Man, Rick Kretzschmar – Coach, and Murray Markle – Coach
Additionally, Joe Fic and Dean Olsen assisted the ministry of mines as judges for some of the competition events.
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Gary Boutilier,
Al Butler,
Todd Gonsky,
and Rob Eccles
during the Bench test. |
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Garry Boutilier
and Keith Notter |
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Gary Boutilier leads his team through the mock mine. |
Mine Rescue Competition
The annual competition serves to showcase the skills of the mine rescue volunteers from the various mines throughout the province and is a valuable training tool for new members. It is a task oriented competition that includes, fire fighting, first aid, practical bench, donning bench, written test and the obstacle & recovery. The various tasks are summarized below:
Obstacle and Recovery -
A mock mine is built and the teams are given a scenario in which there is a fire somewhere in the mine and there are miners unaccounted for. The teams have to explore the mine safely and recover any missing men by following the principals of mine rescue. This usually involves controlling the fire and the ventilation in the mine.
First Aid – This task involves some sort of accident in which there are multiple casualties. The team has to secure the scene, triage and administer first aid to all the victims.
Donning Bench – The team is required to check over and prepare their self contained breathing apparatus for use following established procedures.
Fire Fighting – The team is required to extinguish a fire by using proper application techniques.
Practical Bench – This event varies from year to year, but usually involves team members answering questions about some of the equipment or demonstrating its use. Sometimes there is a scenario where the team must perform a rope rescue. This year’s event was a confined space scenario where the team had to ventilate the confined space, perform first aid on a casualty and then perform a rope rescue.
Written – Each team member is given a multiple choice exam containing questions about mine rescue.