A laborer stationed at sorting areas or grizzlies to manually break oversized pieces of waste rock or ore. They typically used heavy sledgehammers to reduce the material to a size that could pass through grates or be loaded into mine cars. The role was physically demanding and is mostly replaced by mechanical rock breakers in mechanized operations.
Heard on the job
Send a smasher over to the number three grizzly, we've a boulder blocking the grate.