NUNAVUT
Two Nunavut mining companies were set to compete at the 60th Mine Rescue Competition the weekend of June 10.

Six teams competed last year at the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission's Mine Rescue competition in Yellowknife. Meadowbank won first place in first aid and took second place in firefighting, rope rescue and surface obstacle. - photo courtesy of Agnico Eagle

The Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut organizes the event each year in Yellowknife. It's a big event in the city, which includes a family barbecue - and the community comes out to watch and cheer as the mine rescue teams compete.

Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. had two teams - a Meliadine Gold Project team representing in the underground category and a Meadowbank Gold Mine team representing in the surface category.

"I've been involved with mine rescue for over 32 years. I'm still at it because I believe in it so much," said health and safety superintendent Norman Ladouceur. "These are the guys that our miners go to at two o'clock in the morning when something goes wrong." Demonstrating their training each week publicly is important for instilling confidence in workers.

"It's important they see that. If I was stuck underground in a really precarious or bad position, I want to know there are team members out there that are going to come and get me."

The Agnico teams arrived in Val d'Or, Que. May 25, where they trained together. The team members were pumped. They'd just had their final day of training and were hopping a plane to Yellowknife the next day May 6.

"The competition is great, but you must remember that the most important part of that is if there's ever a really large disaster at any one of our mines, then our neighbouring teams will help out."

Mine rescue plays a major role at mine sites.

"At any one point in time we need a minimum of three teams to be able to respond to any type of emergency that we may have on site. At Meadowbank, for example, we have more than 60 people trained, and with the two-week-on, two-week-off rotation, we're able to fulfill the three-team ratio," said Ladouceur.

"At Meliadine, where we're just getting going, we have about 55 members now and we're hoping to top that up to more than 60."

Basic training for a mine employee taking part in mine rescue is one week, or 40 hours, at which point On site, for an underground mine, mine rescue teams might respond to underground fires, toxic or noxious gas from blasts which hasn't cleared, equipment-to-equipment contact where somebody is pinned, or someone falling into a sump requiring water rescue. For surface mining, rescues could include structural fires, spills, ice rescue, and search-and-rescue.

"But the majority of cases we have, believe or not, are from people who get ill in the middle of the night and they're there to help the medics and the nurses to ensure a good team approach," said Ladouceur.

Agnico was set to compete against TMAC's Hope Bay gold mine team, Dominion Diamond Corporation's Ekati team, De Beers Canada Inc.'s Gahcho Kué diamond mine and Victor diamond mine teams, and Rio Tinto Ltd.'s Diavik diamond mine.

Results should be available on the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission website early this week.

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