A Central Elgin business has been fined following a workplace injury almost two years ago.
Gary D. Robinson Contracting, located on Ron McNeil Line, east of Belmont Road, was fined $55,000 last month in St. Thomas court.
The company failed to ensure steel trusses were securely loaded onto a 53-foot trailer.
One of the trusses slid and fell off the trailer, critically injuring a worker.
The court also imposed a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge.
A newsroom release from the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development provided the following details.
Background:
- On the day of the incident, workers were using a hydraulic tracked excavator to load open web steel trusses onto a lowboy trailer.
- They were using a chain attached to the bucket of the excavator to rig the trusses to the bucket. One of the workers was then responsible for chaining and un-chaining the trusses between each lift.
- The trusses were being stacked on the trailer in two parallel piles that stretched nearly the length of the deck of the 53-foot trailer.
- A worker was walking along a stack of trusses on the trailer to unchain the most recently lifted truss when they felt the truss underneath their feet shift and jumped off the trailer.
- A truss then slid and fell off the trailer striking the worker and causing a critical injury.
- An investigation by the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development found that the trusses involved in the incident were wet, not secured on the trailer and were stacked metal-on-metal without any dunnage placed in between each truss to prevent slipping.
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