Kalunga Opweeli (God exists) part 3 – Helmets work.

“Always look above your head, always.” – Underground rule number 1.

You’re more likely to catch Herpes, than get hit by a bullet falling out of the sky. Don’t ask me how I know that, let’s focus more on the danger of falling projectiles. A bullet fired skywards at 90 degrees is only likely to cause a bad bump, because gravity slows its velocity as it falls back down through the lower atmosphere. However, a bullet fired from 45 degrees, is more likely to kill you instantly. Because at that angle, gravity actually increases its velocity as falls back downwards. So at this point, you fully understand why it is a bad idea giving guns to people with poor hand eye coordination, those who support Manchester United football club, and those with alcoholic tendencies.

Helmets are protective gear, used frequently in sports (think Cycling, Ice hockey, Cricket, Gridiron, and baseball) or in dangerous occupations (Mining and Construction). They perform one key function - they reduce the impact of falling or flying objects against the head, which would otherwise maim or kill you. Although the main purpose of mining helmets is to protect the wearer from head trauma, normally caused by objects falling from above. They actually protect the wearer more from collisions with stationary objects e.g. pipes, beams, and support columns. Helmets are very important, especially in an underground mine. As you’re about to find out.

My normal daily routine involves carrying stuff, heavy stuff. I carry quantities of stuff large enough to nullify the need to lift weights at the gym, with the stuff I carry, the workplace is basically an improvised gym. The irony in this particular situation, is that when I first started out as a geologist, I deemed too educated to cut it in the field. The manager at a company I applied to for a job, said that I was too overqualified to be a field geologist – during a job interview! The dude literally spelt it out, “You look too clean to be a field geologist, and you have too many degrees, we need someone who can lift stuff.” If only he could see me now.

If you’ve been reading my stories long enough, this is the part where I start to make sense and tie everything in the introduction together. Are you ready? Okay, brace yourself.

So what do falling objects, safety helmets, and heavy stuff have in common? They are all key components in the story of how I ended up at the emergency room at the beginning of the year. It was sometime after 20h00 (mines work 24 hours, in shifts), I was off siding for the driller. Off siding, basically means ‘carrying stuff’. 

We’d just moved the machine to a new site, we were drilling into the roof, to insert support bolts (Because rocks fall down and kill you if you don’t support them). The machine needs three key things to function: Water (to expel cuttings out of the drill hole), Electricity (running things on diesel is costly), and Pressure (the machine generates this from its compressor). The first two are the most important with relevance to what I am about to tell you.

There are connection points for water and electricity at all work sites. It works pretty much like normal household points. The water pipe is connected to a high pressure source (like a tap) via a connector or a pin (If you did your chores as kid, you know what I’m talking about). The power cord is connected to a high voltage socket via a plug, the on/off switch is on the socket. Okay, can we all picture the scenario? Or do I need to doodle a drawing? Now take the socket and plug idea and supersize to power a machine that can break solid rock like buttering bread. The plug would need to be bigger right? And so would the socket. So picture the socket about the size of three six packs of beer and the plug at about two six packs of beer (So only the non-alcoholics are lost). The only difference is that the plug and socket are cased in steel. The plug would weigh the same as a dumbbell with 7.5 kg weight on each side. Still following?

Okay, here is where it gets complicated. The electricity socket was suspended, roughly five meters above the floor, we used an adapted forklift to plug the machine in. Just the previous week I was talking to one of the surveyor’s, who pointed out the buffoonery of suspending things so high in the air. So after setting up, we were ready to drill, all I had to do was push the cables to the side to allow any cars to drive in and it was go time. The two cables had tangled, so I pulled the water cable and threw it to the side. And that’s when it happened.

The best way to describe the impact is to compare it to an aerial duel for the ball, think basketball, netball, rugby, and a heading duel in soccer. Two players go up to win the ball, one come off worse and takes a hit in the air and staggers on landing. The impact was brief, a light whack on the side of the head, but I staggered, two steps forward. Then the ground got closer, and closer and closer, till I realised that it was because I was falling towards it. It was too late, I was on my way down, I put my forearm out to brace for impact. And, Thud! I hit the ground, I knew it because I could almost taste the dust from the fall. My helmet rolled off my head, and it occurred to me that something had hit me on the head. My eyes started closing, although I could hear the operator screaming, “Hou kom as die krag af? Jeerie.” And then then world slowly went dark. Lights out!

When I came to, I was propped up against the side wall, sitting like a wounded soldier in the trenches. I was covered in dust, grime, and confusion. What the heck happened? And as I moved my neck and experienced a stiff yet surprisingly strong pain in my neck, it all came back to me. The plug had slipped out and whacked me on the head. The damned thing was lying 2 meters from me, so it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

The events in between my trip to the surface and the doctor’s flashing light at the hospital are fuzzy, so I’ll be brief. Assisted into 4x4 whilst holding neck, filled out paperwork with admin assistant whilst still holding neck, got a ride to the hospital with security supervisor, and I was still holding my neck.

It turns out that helmets actually do work, after a relieving pain killing injection to the spine, I couldn’t even feel my bloody neck. I had to wear a neck brace for two days and get my c-spine x-rayed just to be sure, but everything checked out. Helmets really do work.

The coup de grace was when I walked in to the house the morning after, neck brace and all.

 

Head of the house: What happened (eyes wide).

Me: I got hit on the head by a piece of equipment.

Head of the house: Really, and you didn’t die?

Me, and everybody else: LMFAO!

Sometimes it’s the most unexpected thing that falls and hits you on the head.

To be continued…