Teaching lessons of Pike River

The father of one man who died in the Pike River mine explosions and another who survived is in Northland with safety messages to help people in dangerous industries avoid the heartache he has been through.

Neville Rockhouse, 54, had been Pike River Coal's safety and training manager for more than four years before the first mine blast on November 19, 2010 - a day which changed his life forever.

His youngest son, Ben, 21, was among 29 men killed in the tragedy.

The second oldest of his three sons, Daniel, now 27, got out of the mine alive, dragging the only other survivor.

And his father, 87-year-old Raymond Rockhouse, died of heart failure after seeing news of the mine explosion on television, knowing that his coalminer grandsons were underground at the time.

Neville said that Daniel was now working in an underground mine in Australia, but his life was in turmoil with Pike Creek nightmares, sole survivor and post-traumatic stress syndromes contributing to a split from his wife and children.

Neville also suffered two years of intense stress caused by the deaths in his family, the commission of inquiry and his work with other grieving families trying to recover the bodies.

The commission of inquiry exonerated Mr Rockhouse from blame in the mine disaster. There is hope the bodies will be extracted. If retrieval is not feasible, the section of the mine where the dead men remain will be sealed and become their memorial.

"It's been an emotional rollercoaster, but it now feels like the right time to let out what I've held in over the past two years and communicate lessons which could help other high-risk industries prevent a repetition of Pike River," Mr Rockhouse said.

He and his wife Tracey have been in the North for a week, giving up to three safety presentations daily to groups of Refining NZ staff at the Marsden Pt oil refinery. He and Tracey are finding it healing to talk about their experiences and refinery staff have been absorbed by their tale.

Mr Rockhouse has told them they make many safety decisions daily, and urged them to get all the information they need to make the right decisions to avoid injury to themselves and others.

Refining NZ health and safety manager Wade Alsweiler described Mr Rockhouse's story as a heart-wrenching reminder of how a normal day could turn into a nightmare.

"What happened at Pike River must never be repeated, here or anywhere in New Zealand," he said.