Gate accident costs freight company $100,000

 
    From: PerthNow
    December 22, 2011


A FREIGHT company has been fined $100,000 after a broken gate fell on a security guard and fractured his skull during his first day on the job.   :(

Airroad Pty Limited was fined in the Perth Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to failing to provide a safe workplace for a person who was not an employee.

The charge relates to an incident in January 2009, when a security guard employed by Westsec International Pty Ltd went to the company’s Kewdale premises to work in the rear yard.

The afternoon of his first day at work, he was manually closing the 2m-high metal sliding gate to the yard when it dislodged from its vertical holding frame and fell on him.   :(

His skull, face and foot were fractured in the accident.

The gate was designed to be automatic but it had to be opened and closed manually after a truck damaged its operating mechanism.



Repairs started but had not been completed.

Worksafe WA Commissioner Lex McCulloch said today the company should have acted more quickly to fix the gate.

He said a one-hour repair job on the gate, which the company completed two days after the accident, could have prevented the worker being injured.   :(

"Two days after this incident, a t-bar stopper was welded to the rear end of the gate to prevent it from over-travelling,” he said.

“This took one hour, and would have prevented the security guard from being injured if it had been done sooner."

Mr McCulloch said the company could have also locked the gate and stopped anyone from using it until it was properly repaired.

"It would have been possible for the company to have had the repairs made to this gate within around eight hours," he said.

"Instead, the repairs had still not been completed almost three weeks later.   :(

"This fine is the highest we have had under this section of workplace safety laws, demonstrating how seriously the court viewed the company's failure to act on this hazard."



comments on this story


    LAZY SONS Posted at 5:10 PM December 23, 2011

        This guy had his skull and foot fractured from a faulty gate that should have been fixed, it about time these companies were fined and I hope that the company he works for is also fined they surly have a duty of care as well.   >:(