Mining death inquest finds deficient recordkeeping led to suffocation

A coronial inquest into the death of a central Queensland miner who suffocated on lethal gas has found operator Anglo American’s record keeping was “grossly deficient” and his death could have been avoided. … Electrician Paul McGuire was sent to an underground area of the Grasstree coal mine near Middlemount in May 2014 to calibrate a gas monitor. …

An inquest held in Mackay in February heard that Mr McGuire opened a hatch to the sealed room and suffocated on methane gas in a disused area known as a “goaf”.

The father-of-two died almost instantly.

… “The poor checking or failure of adequate checking of the completed job cards with inaction to update the system, was at the heart of where the process broke down and directly led to Mr McGuire’s death,” Magistrate O’Connell wrote in his findings.   Read More: ABC, 22 May 2021