The territorial workers' compensation, health and safety board has released the details of a recent work site death in the hopes it will prevent similar tragedies.

"We really want people to look at this and see if the same conditions exist in their work place,” Kurt Dieckmann, director of occupational health and safety for the Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board, said today.

He was referring to the death of Jimmy Conklin, the owner-operator of a placer mining operation on Dominion Creek outside Dawson City.

Conklin died Sept. 10 when the loader he was driving rolled over.

He was using the machine to feed gravel into his sluice box when the engine stalled.

With faulty brakes and no roll-over protection system, the vehicle rolled backward down the ramp, according to the board's report.

As Conklin tried to steer without power, the loader's left tires struck a gravel bank at the bottom of the ramp. The loader rolled over onto its cab, crushing Conklin.

The stalled engine and bad brakes are to blame for the loader rolling backward, the report states.

Because there was no power, Conklin was unable to steer away from the gravel bank, and once the machine flipped, the cab wasn't strong enough to protect him.

A fellow miner came upon the scene of Conklin's death at around 3:30 that afternoon and called for help, although Conklin was already gone.

The 60-year-old miner's one-man operation is one of about 100 independently or family-owned placer mining operations in the territory.

The industry employs between 400 and 600 people annually, according to the Klondike Placers Miners' Association, and generates around $40 million annually.

"This isn't just directed at the placer industry,” Dieckmann said.

"We really want people to understand that operating equipment that is not mechanically sound will result in tragedy. Please, if it's not mechanically sound, shut it down and fix it.

"... We hope that this will lead to changes; we really hope that people will read this and look at their own operations a little more closely and ask themselves, ‘Do we have these conditions?'”