A NEAR MISS: Playing Hide and Seek with a 200 Ton Dragline

My most poignant, and potentially fatal memory on this job involved a pit car and a dragline. One of the more unusual operations in my profession involved what looked like one of those catering trucks without wheels, and almost without sides. Two large windows, exposed to the elements, stood adjacent to a massive dragline. Each window sported a high pressure water gun. As the dragline scooped up multiplied tons of phosphate-laden dirt, and dropped it nearby, two gunners washed the stuff towards a large grate, where it began its journey towards a processing plant.

From time to time, when things were slow or when it was necessary for me to communicate with the dragline operator, I would walk over and chat with him, or provide him necessary information.

To this day, I don’t know what possessed me, but I left the pit car, and began to walk diagonal from it to the dragline. Unfortunately, the dragline was in full operation, and its giant bucket (which an F-150 truck could fit comfortably into, with room remaining) swept towards yours truly. I think I must have been totally oblivious of the threat, but that I recount these stories today, or that my children, grandchildren, and assorted descendants exist, is proof that the dragline operator was all too aware of the matter, and was determined to prevent my early demise.

There is little doubt that the twenty ton bucket would have made short work of me had the operator not acted as instinctively as he did. It was a wonder he even saw me in the darkness of that night. As the crane boom swept across the intervening distance, and with mere yards to spare, he dropped the massive bucket against the side of the man-made crater. If I had been unaware of my dilemma ‘til then, I was all too aware of it now. The racket the bucket made, as it slammed against the dirt cliff would have awakened Lazarus.  

Well, in so many words, and with expletives deleted, the operator informed me that I should NEVER walk between the pit car and a functioning dragline. Believe me, he was NOT a happy camper. I have long since forgotten the man’s name, or face, but I will be eternally grateful for his expertise, on what in retrospect, was a singular evening in my life.

by William McDonald, PhD. Except from Vol. 2, "Snapshots of a Life." Copyright 2005

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