The general manager of the Agrium Vanscoy mine is reacting after a worker was seriously injured on the job. The incident comes a few weeks after another miner, 29-year-old Chad Wiklun, died of injuries sustained on the job.
“It’s an absolute low of my entire career,” Todd Steen said on Wednesday.
The second injury came just as the mine was gearing towards full operations after being shut down in the wake of Wiklun’s death. While details of the latest incident are still unclear, Steen said it occurred underground on Sunday morning.
“We’d be lying to ourselves if we had two incidents like this and tried to say we didn’t have a problem,” he said.
“There’s obviously some things we need to do better and that has to be done with tremendous urgency … We can’t be complacent. We have to do better.”
Occupational Health and Safety is currently investigating both incidents. The oversight body said before these events, there were no discernable issues with safety at Agrium Vanscoy compared to other mines across Saskatchewan.
Wiklun was pinned between two pieces of equipment in the mine in the early morning hours of Aug. 8. He died a few days later from his injuries. The worker seriously hurt Sunday is expected to recover.
-With files from Brent Bosker.