Worker injured in underground mine door failure prompts safety overhaul

A serious underground incident in New South Wales has sparked renewed safety warnings across the mining sector after a worker was pinned between two heavy ventilation doors during a planned airflow change at a coal mine in the Wollongong region.

The NSW Resources Regulator confirmed the incident took place on 13 June 2025, during a scheduled major ventilation reconfiguration involving the use of double machine doors. As pressure mounted on the ventilation infrastructure, one of the doors failed unexpectedly, trapping a worker between them for up to two minutes and resulting in significant injuries.

Door dislodgement leads to entrapment

According to the Regulator’s Safety Alert SA25-03, the incident occurred while a team attempted to open a pair of high-pressure double doors to redirect airflow. The operation required mechanical assistance due to substantial pressure acting on the doors, with workers using a load haul dump (LHD) vehicle fitted with a man basket to help open the inbye doors on the belt-road side.

The first set of outbye doors had been opened and secured. The right-hand inbye door was then chained to the LHD’s man cage and pulled open. The left-hand door, meanwhile, was believed to be secured to the rib using an improvised method. During the process of unchaining the right-hand door, the unsecured left-hand door suddenly swung shut, trapping a worker between both doors.

The worker remained pinned until a colleague used improvised methods—including repositioning the LHD and prying the doors—to release them. The incident has highlighted the critical dangers associated with the uncontrolled movement of ventilation doors under pressure.

Safety failings identified

The Regulator’s investigation identified several shortcomings that contributed to the incident:

• No formal procedure existed for safely opening and securing both doors simultaneously.

• There were no exclusion zones or hazard controls to prevent workers from entering high-risk “line-of-fire” positions.

• The method used to secure the left-hand door was makeshift and its effectiveness had not been confirmed.

• The task planning did not adequately account for the high-pressure forces acting on the ventilation doors.

The Safety Alert includes a diagram (page 3) showing the incident site layout, illustrating the positions of the man cage, LHD, and the two sets of inbye and outbye doors, underscoring the complexity of the task and the confined nature of the underground environment.

Regulator issues urgent recommendations

In response, the Regulator has called on all mine operators to immediately review their procedures and implement stricter safety measures. Key recommendations include:

• Developing formal, documented procedures for opening double doors where both need to be open simultaneously.

• Establishing clearly defined exclusion zones to keep personnel out of line-of-fire areas.

• Ensuring all securing methods are engineered, verified, and fit for purpose before work begins.

• Providing proper training on mechanical aids and procedures related to high-pressure ventilation systems.

• Including verification hold points during high-risk tasks to ensure all critical controls are in place before proceeding.

The incident forms part of the broader Weekly Incident Summary issued by the NSW Resources Regulator for the week ending 18 July 2025, which documented 39 reportable incidents across NSW mining operations, including ground failures and equipment faults in both open-cut and underground environments.

A full video walkthrough of the incident and preventative guidance has been published by the Regulator to reinforce learnings across the sector: watch here.

For more safety alerts and operational guidance, visit the Regulator’s official safety database at resources.nsw.gov.au.