General News
19 March, 2025
Mine emergency teams put to work in Cloncurry
Evolution Mining brought in crews from across the country to hone their skills over three days.
Four emergency teams from across Evolution Mining’s Australian sites have been put through their paces in a series of exercises in Cloncurry.
Crews from Ernest Henry, Northparkes and Cowal in New South Wales. and Mungari in Western Australia spent the week doing mock training drills.
The visiting teams knew they were in for a two-day challenge at Ernest Henry, but were taken by surprise on Monday when they were taken straight from the Cloncurry Airport to the local footy grounds, where an exercise greeted them on arrival.
“We’ve set up a mass casualty event and we’ve asked the teams to work together,” said Denzil Cowen, Evolution Mining’s safety, health and emergency superintendent at Ernest Henry.
“They didn’t work in their own teams – they were all split up – which is fantastic ... we had around 18 casualties mixed up throughout all the vehicles.
“We presented a number of different scenarios with all sorts of different injuries.”
Mr Cowen, who led the planning of the exercise, said it was great to catch the visiting teams off guard and praised their attitude and quick responses.
“As they came to the oval they would have been able to see the emergency services and all the cars, so they would have twigged something was happening,” he said.
“We informed them that it was pretty much an all-in event with everyone participating and they just got stuck in.”
Littered amongst the bodies in the mock exercise were volunteers from nearby mines, including AIC Copper and Mount Isa Mines.
“Some were more enthusiastic than others,” Mr Cowen said with a smile after one participant hammed it up for the small crowd at the recreation grounds.
“We’ve definitely got the contender for the best casualty.”
Mr Cowen said Evolution Mining had been planning the training exercises for about a year.
“This was initiated by our group manager of sustainability systems and assurance Troy Peters. Sadly, Troy couldn’t attend today, but it was probably 12 months ago that we embarked on this journey,” he said.
“This was the beginning and then we’ll go into Ernest Henry and we’ve got two more days of different events occurring.”