Convictions have been laid after a worker was knocked unconscious and crushed between two pieces of heavy machinery at the Beltana coalmine.

The incident in April 2010 has been pinned on Bulga Underground Operations, after it failed in its argument that the risk to the miner was not foreseeable.

The mine operator pleaded not guilty to the offence under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, but NSW District Court Judge James Curtis disagreed.

“The circumstances in which [the miner] came to be injured were foreseeable to a reasonable person standing in the place of the defendant,” he ruled.

“The defendant failed to mitigate the foreseeable risk by taking the reasonably practicable measure of employing the services of an additional miner in the crew, whose sole task was to observe the drum operators and stop the advancement of roof supports if the drum operator became disabled.”

The miner was knocked out and crushed between part of an automatically advancing roof support and the side of a continuous armoured face conveyor, the court heard.

The worker was found semi-conscious, with “severe” crush injuries and a large piece of roof lying on his thigh.

Bulga Underground Operations will be sentenced at a later date.