WorkSafeBC has handed down two major penalties in workplace accidents involving workers in the Powell River area, including a fatality in Toba Inlet, February of 2009.
Peter Kiewit Infrastructure Co. is being fined $250,000 for its role in the death of 24-year-old rock scaler Samuel Joseph Fitzpatrick of Squamish on February 22, 2009. In the incident a 1.5-metre diameter boulder came loose during land clearing operations and crushed Fitzpatrick as he hand-drilled into a boulder below the work area.
WorkSafeBC found that the company failed to sufficiently prevent the accident, did not comply with certain sections of the Workers Compensation Act and “failed to provide its workers with adequate instruction and training for land-clearing work.”
The amount of the fine is based on the employer committing “high risk violations knowingly or in reckless disregard of its statutory health and safety obligations” and the fact that the incident resulted in a fatality.
A representative from Kiewit said the company has asked WorkSafeBC to review the decision and that they have no further comment to make while the review process is ongoing.
WorkSafeBC also fined Black & McDonald Ltd. $70,962.46 for its part in an incident on January 27, 2010 in which a young worker was crushed by the end of a 7,853-pound beam. During the erection of a transmission tower, within a new substation compound, a beam fell after a sling broke as workers were lifting it over a fence with a mobile crane. The worker survived the accident.
As written in the announcement of the penalty, WorkSafeBC found that the firm “failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety.”
All penalties are subject to appeal, which the employer must file within 90 days of the issuance of the fine. Black & McDonald Ltd. did not reply to calls for comment.
