ENVIRONMENT

Drager to the rescue

THE European manufacturer claims to have set a new standard for mine emergency refuge stations.

Staff Reporter
Drager to the rescue

Proof that manufacturers are finally taking the design of underground mine refuge stations seriously seems to have arrived in the form of Drager’s new emergency rescue chamber.

Looking more like a sophisticated life-preserving device than a converted cargo container, the rescue station is said to be winning over some of Australia’s largest mining companies. And a spokesperson for Drager Australia said the company was confident of increasing sales of the units “significantly” in 2002.

“We certainly see demand for this product increasing in future as underground mines go deeper and the self-rescue trend gains wider industry acceptance,” said Drager Australia product marketing manager, breathing systems, Jim Katsieris.

“Sales of properly specified refuge stations — as opposed to converted sea containers which seemed to be the local industry standard for many years — will benefit from this shifting philosophy, as should the newest emergency response system of all, a combination of compressed air breathing apparatus (CABA) and filling stations.”

According to Katsieris, a project involving a New South Wales coal producer and CABA/filling station installations is the first of its type in the world.

He said the underground emergency mine rescue stations being supplied by the company in Australia were versions of units sold for many years in Europe. “When we decided to enter the Australian market, it made sense to develop and build a local version of the European product as we probably would not have been price competitive had we attempted to sell units imported from overseas. However, the fact that we based our design on that of Europe’s means that we have drawn on the collective experience and expertise of the Drager group worldwide.”

A leading international safety equipment manufacturer, Drager has been designing and building emergency rescue stations for several years. The company also has a long history of research, development and manufacturing of recompression and hyperbaric chambers, and oxygen self-rescuing and filtration systems.

“The days of using converted sea containers as refuge stations are nearly over,” Katsieris said. “The Drager ERS is a purpose built unit that has not been previously subjected to harsh conditions — such as sea air, salt water, etc — for unknown periods as is usually the case with sea containers. A sea container can sit in a dockyard for months or even years before it is converted into a refuge station, which can affect its structural integrity even further.

“Another key market change is that more and more local customers are demanding refuge stations that do more than provide an initial place of refuge in the event of an emergency underground.

“The scientific reality is that once mining personnel have taken refuge their collective breathing will deplete oxygen and increase carbon dioxide levels inside the station, so consideration must also be given to maintaining sufficient levels of breathable air during the station’s period of use.

“Indeed, this is a regulatory requirement in some countries — Canada, for example — and we can only hope that Australia will follow suit soon.”

Katsieris said the Drager emergency rescue station had a modular design that allowed purchasers to specify a range of features. The unit could be supplied with one of several optional means of delivering breathing air to occupants — compressed mine’s air, bottled medical or breathing air, or a carbon dioxide scrubber. A combination of these air delivery methods could be chosen if the customer wanted air back-up, depending on their own risk assessment, or they might elect to have only one air supply if the aim was to keep costs down.

“The point is that customers have the option with our unit,” Katsieris said.

“All the refuge stations we have built this year have been supplied with a carbon dioxide scrubber that has been proven to work in a simulated underground emergency environment. We do not believe the scrubbing systems used by our competitors have been similarly verified for use in this specific application by an independent third party.”

Katsieris said other standard features of Drager emergency refuge stations were a chemical toilet and industrial sink with manual pump and a water tank. Surprisingly, he said, these weren’t standard features of other units.

“I would have thought this to be pretty important to a group of people who could spend days together in a confined space.

“Other units are appreciably smaller than ours and I honestly don’t think they have room to even offer them as options,” Katsieris said. “The importance of the extra space inside the Drager ERS cannot be overstated in terms of its effect on the comfort levels of the occupants.”

The new refuge stations can be easily moved as the working face of a mine advances. They come with forklift holes, lifting lugs and a heavy duty skid, enabling them to be dragged or pushed into position.

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