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Saturday, 11 August 2007 |
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 As I drove round the first sweeping right hand bend my truck door suddenly flung open hitting the wall which instantly slammed the door again but because the latch was broken the door flung open again hitting the wall for the second time tossing the window out onto the ground.
My door may have been broken at the start of shift, but if it was then I was unaware of it. The first leg of my journey was to drive 800 meters underground to the underground lunch room, it?s known as the level 400 crib room. When I arrived I parked my truck on the decline and put my lunch in the fridge and tagged on to show that I was working below that level. I jumped back in my truck and slammed the door closed; slamming the door is normal on all our Caterpillar trucks in fact we have to slam the doors on our Mack truck as well because if we don?t, the doors simply won?t close properly and they just rattle like hell. When I closed the door it bounced back without the catch locking, because I was on the decline the door naturally wanted to open and I had to use all my weight to pull the door closed so that the latch would lock properly but it bounced away again which made me suspicious of the locking mechanism.
Vehicles were banked up behind me so I couldn?t investigate properly. I decided to hold the door shut until I could find a good place to park where the fitters could look at it for me. As I drove a short distance I noticed that the door had clicked closed and even though it rattled I figured that it would get me to level 276, a nice open area where the fitters could work on it if need be. Just as I rounded the corner at level 350 the door flung open and bashed hard against the wall slamming the door closed once more but because the catch was not working or broken the door flung open again, this time popping my window out onto the ground in the access of the 350 cuddy. The whole door thing scared the shit out of me and I quickly braked so as not to damage the door any more than it might already be. I looked through the hole in my door where my window used to be down onto the ground to see the window intact and unbroken. I had nowhere to stow the window so I left it in the 350 access where no-one was likely to run over it and immediately called the fitters telling them that I was going to meet them at 276 for door and window repairs.
A good 3 hours passed before anyone was able to come and look at my truck, by then I had taken a good look at the door noting how little damage had been done from the contact with the wall. The latch didn?t seem bent either, it appeared that the bolts that held the latch on had snapped off leaving the latch mechanism swinging by the linkage.
Robbo and Jason, the underground fitters of the day fitted the window using a new rubber surround and fitted a new mechanism for the door. I was pretty sure that I saw them test the mech by opening an closing the door a couple of times before telling me that I could drive the truck but when I went to get out of the truck at lunch time I realized that the catch wasn?t working again, this time instead of not closing, it wouldn?t open.
Robbo told me that he was now on the surface and could help me get out of the truck, he suggested that someone else let me out. No-one was available so I decided to do another load to the surface.
When I got to the workshop the fitters couldn?t open the door from the outside either, I had to climb out the window and in the end they cut the latch with a grinder to open it. The next one worked fine. |
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