B.C. Mining association holds their 100th annual competition

The East Kootenay Mining Industrial Safety Association (EKMISA) held competitions for mine rescue in their 100th annual event on May 13 in Sparwood, with the first recorded mine rescue competition taking place on the Fernie City Hall lawn in 1904.

The first and second place finishers for the Surface Competition and Three Person First Aid will be headed to Williams Lake on June 17 to compete again.

EKMISA’s vision is to highlight the skills of their mine rescue teams in the East Kootenay, through safe and fair competition. The association’s mandate is to provide a sustainable organization and execution of annual mine rescue competition, that responsibly preserves the integrity and history of EKMISA, which was founded in 1919.

Individual mine site shift teams compete each spring to qualify for their zones competition teams. The EKMISA Zones competition occurs annually in May with active mines competing in the following tasks: Written Skills, Three Person First Aid, Rope Rescue, Fire Task, Bench/Practical Skills, and Other Task. The Other Task can be anything and varies from year to year.

Each task is judged with score sheets providing up to 600 points per task. Captains get up to 75 points, General Task points go up to 375 and First Aid is worth 150 points. Teams will be competing for trophies in Individual Written Score, Team Written Score, Bench, Other, Rope, Fire, Other, Three Person First Aid, and overall Surface winners.

This year’s teams come from Fording River, Greenhills, Line Creek, Elkview and Coal Mountain.

Results are as follow: Best Individual Written - Josiah Sypulski, Team Written - Line Creek, Other Task - Fording River, Bench Task - Fording River, Rope Task – Greenhills, Fire Task - Line Creek, Three Person First Aid Written - Chris Olsen (Fording River), Three Person First Aid Best Captain - Nick Grady (Fording River), Three Person First Aid second place - Line Creek, Three Person First Aid winner - Fording River, Surface Best Captain - Steve Kavanaugh (Fording River), Surface second place – Greenhills, Surface winner - Fording River.

More information can be found on the group’s Facebook page. To learn more about the 65th annual provincial competition in Williams Lake, visit facebook.com/BCMineRescue.