21.11.2005

Company fined for lack of training

All Canada Aerials Ltd., a crane and access rental company, from Mississauga, Ontario, was fined C$125,000 along with a company supervisor, who was fined C$10,000 earlier this month.

Each was charged with a single violation of Canada's Occupational Health and Safety Act that resulted in the death of a new employee, according to the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

On Feb. 18, 2004, a new delivery driver, whose duties involved collecting and delivering aerial lifts and other equipment, was at a customers site to pick up a “Genie Boom” .He was in the booms basket attempting to load the machine onto his trailer, when it “accelerated backwards off of the trailer”. Tilting sideways it threw the driver out of the cage and into a tanker standing alongside the truck.

The driver was not wearing a harness!

He sustained serious head injuries when he hit the tanker and was taken by ambulance to St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, where he died ten days later. The incident occurred at Castrol North America in Etobicoke, Ontario

It was only the driver's sixth day on the job, and a Ministry of Labour investigation determined that he had no training for, or experience in, operating the boom prior to being employed by All Canada Aerials Ltd. on Feb. 12, 2004.

The ministry also found that operation of the boom or other lifts was not covered by the brief training sessions provided to the driver by the company.

All Canada Aerials Ltd. pleaded guilty, as an employer, to failing to ensure the driver was competent to operate the lift, as required by Section 51(2)(a)(i) of the Regulations for Industrial Establishments. This was contrary to Section 25(1)(c) of the act..

In addition, a supervisor pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the driver was competent to operate the boom, as required under section 27 of the same act.

The fines were imposed by Justice of the Peace John Farnum of the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton, Ontario. In addition to the fines, the court imposed a 25 percent victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.