The Lessons Life Teaches, A Collection of Short Stories.

Fly Rock

In the 1980s, I was tasked to evaluate a barite mine in northern Thailand. It was a quite extensive orebody that was controlled by two competing companies. One company, the one I was there with, Oriental Gold, held the rights to the central portion of the orebody and the other company owned both ends of the deposit. The central portion was named the Attani Mine after the principal owner of Oriental Gold. Ms. Attani was very cordial and had a number of university-trained mine engineers accompany me for the evaluation. The two competing companies apparently did not get along or communicate with each other on a daily basis.

Being born in 1953, I was probably 26 or 27 years old when I visited the mine. I was certainly not wise to the world. The mine engineer in charge of the Attani Group was maybe 50 years old and obviously had worked in and around mines for many years. The engineer took us down into the pit in his vehicle. I recall walking around the pit bottom looking at the mining practices and the orebody exposures. Suddenly and totally without warning the neighboring mining company set off a large blast in their pit directly above and adjacent to where we were walking around. I then saw a shower of fly rock from the blast coming our way. I immediately ran and got behind the vehicle to avoid getting hit with rocks up to four or five inches in diameter. From behind the safety of the vehicle, I saw the experienced mine engineer standing still looking up, with a laser focus, at the rocks flying our way. As one rock began falling toward him, he would calmly step sideways out of the way. After a few long seconds it was all over and fortunately no one was hurt by the falling rocks.

Afterwards I walked over to the chief engineer and asked why he didn't run and get behind the vehicle. Sagely, he said he might have got hit in the back of the head while running away. It was much better to face the oncoming danger and just move out of the way. Then came the phrase that has stuck with me all these years. He said "It's not the rocks you see that can hurt you. It's the ones you don't see."

Later in life, I also learned the phrase "Be aware of your surroundings. It's what you don't see coming that can hurt you." by the chief geologist from the company I worked with at the time. Both quotes are similar and I have found them to be true, important to remember, and practice. The first quote was just learned in a more dramatic fashion.