In April 2022 a 59-year-old truck driver was crushed when an automatic sliding gate fell on him at a Dandenong depot. Gate Automation Systems Pty Ltd, a gate manufacturing and repair business, had been engaged to maintain and repair a 12m automatic sliding gate at the depot. The service technician found the drive motor required off-site repairs and removed the motor from the gate.
The removal of the motor enabled the gate, if operated manually, to roll off its rails and beyond supporting posts. Before leaving the client’s site with the motor the service technician verbally advised a site manager to secure the gate with a lock and chain to render it safe – the gate was left unsecured and there was no follow-up.
Two days later the gate was manually opened to allow trucks and equipment to pass through. The truck driver was the last to leave the depot and as he was attempting to manually drag the unstable gate closed, the gate fell and crushed the driver, who died at the scene.
Gate Automation Systems Pty Ltd was prosecuted under s.23 of the OHS Act for failing to reduce or eliminate the risk that the gate could fall from its rails and cause serious injury or death to a person other than an employee. They received a $350,000 fine with a conviction recorded.
It is entirely reasonable to expect the company and the service technician to have applied a safe system of work to the gate requiring a “lock out tag out” system, along with a restraining chain to ensure that the gate could not be manually opened. The hazard was an obvious and foreseeable one, with a risk of causing serious injury or death.
Read more: Prosecution Result Summaries and Enforceable Undertakings | WorkSafe Victoria