OVER THE PAST 38 years, John Butchart has triggered more than 5,000 blasts around the world, from ski resort slopes and dams to bridges and mines.
No, he is not a terrorist. And yes, that is his real name. He is in fact principal blasting engineer and general manager of Brandrill Engineering, a company that operates a blasting contracting and consultancy service.
His first job was in a road construction gang in the mountain forests of southern Australia.
'The old-timers in the bush taught me everything I needed to know about how not to use explosives,' said the Australian. 'We used to go out along the survey line and blow up any rocks or trees that were too big for the bulldozers to push over.
'We would mix our own explosive, add some dynamite and set it off with a safety fuse. When we were ready, we would light the fuses and hide under the bulldozers. When the charges fired, there would be rocks, stumps and dirt raining down everywhere.'
The fact that nobody ever got hurt was more a matter of luck than good management, he said.
The days of using dynamite are long gone. 'We don't use dynamite any more, and we don't use safety fuses. Modern explosives are safer than the older stuff, provided they are used correctly by trained and experienced personnel. We must always remember that explosives are designed to explode. No explosive is completely safe. If it were, it wouldn't work.'
