Burned coal miner says Anglo ignored safety pleas, mine explosion inquiry told

The pressure wave came ‘like a cyclone’. Engulfed in blue flame, Wayne Sellars didn’t know he was on fire as 70 per cent of his body burned.

Injured Grosvenor miner Wayne Sellars speaks at the Queensland coal mining board of inquiry.

A coalminer has described being engulfed in blue flame and catching on fire underground after being hit by two pressure waves “like a cyclone,” in a devastating explosion at Anglo American’s Grosvenor mine.

Shearer driver Wayne Sellars is the first of five miners burned in the May 6 methane explosion to publicly talk about the blast and its aftermath, in harrowing testimony to the Queensland coalmining board of inquiry.

Mr Sellars said he and his colleagues repeatedly warned Anglo American management at the central Queensland site about safety issues, including “constant” methane bubbling up through the floor and an unstable roof that kept caving in.

He said the workers’ requests for extra safety measures — such as injecting resin into the walls and roof to make it more stable, or cutting coal in only one direction to reduce workers’ exposure to dust — were often denied by ­management.

Despite many methane exceed­ances in the years before the explosion, Mr Sellars said he and his crew were never evacuated while the gas dissipated.

On May 6, he said the first pressure wave caught him by surprise, with nothing to indicate it was coming. “(It felt like) a ­cyclone, a huge pressure wave,” Mr Sellars said.

He said he managed to stay standing, as one of his co-workers was knocked off his feet by the wave. “I remember saying to (another miner) ‘They’re not going to like this, that’s another HPI (high potential incident)’.”

At that point, power underground was tripped by the high gas levels and all the lights went out. “The next thing that happened was a second pressure wave, which ignited,” Mr Sellars said. “(There was) blue flame, yes, like a standing-up blow torch.”

He said it sounded like “two stones cracked together”.

“I was on fire at that stage, I don’t recall anything from that point on. When the flame stopped, it was just ‘get out’.”

He grabbed one of his fellow workers’ “belt or what was left of his pants” to pull him out of the mine, yelled “go, go go,” and could hear another miner “screaming behind me … And we started marching out,” he said.

Mr Sellars said a deputy met him near the main gate. “I take my hat off to (deputy Adam Maggs) for coming in. Maggsy tried to get me to stop. (I said) ‘F..k off, I’m not stopping’. (He said) ‘But you’re on fire’. He tried to pat me out.”

Mr Sellars said he was not aware he was on fire.

He had suffered burns to 70 per cent of his body, and spent three weeks in intensive care in Brisbane and six weeks in hospital before later being readmitted for complications.

Mr Sellars had kidney failure, blood clots in his lungs, and has had 10 surgeries so far. He has three more scheduled this year, including an ear reconstruction. He has had skin grafts to his hands, arms, shoulders, back, face and head.

He said he had worked in the mining industry for 13 years, as a permanent employee and labour hire contractor.

He was employed at Grosvenor as a contractor, through labour hire company OneKey.

He said contractors were treated differently and worse. “If someone injured themselves, we’d lose our bonus onsite; it breeds bad culture and puts everyone off-side,” he said. “As a permanent, if you got told you’d lose your bonus, you’d walk out.”

Mr Sellars said he did not feel unsafe during his mining career, and had never expected the explosion to happen. He said he wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“You put a lot of trust in other people’s judgment, you’ve got to trust your management,” he said.

Anglo American’s metallurgical coal chief executive Tyler Mitchelson said the company would “pay close attention to Mr Sellars’ testimony … It is unacceptable our colleagues were injured at Grosvenor Mine last May; we acknowledge the life-­altering impact this incident has had on them and their families.”