Stalkea Pty Ltd, a diving instruction business near Geelong, has been fined $40K after an employee lost a leg and sustained other serious injuries in a scuba cylinder explosion.
The business provided scuba diving equipment and lessons for beginner through to more experienced divers seeking to gain PADI accreditation. The employee was a dive instructor who had worked for the business for three years.
In October 2022 the employee was filling scuba cylinders with compressed air. The workplace system was that empty tanks were placed near the rear door with their caps off. The employee brought tanks into the shop to the filling station and filled the tanks in accordance with the Australian Standard procedure, which was displayed near the filling station. As he was closing the valves on the filled tanks, he heard a whistling and assumed it was a leakage.
Almost immediately one of the scuba cylinders exploded, blowing out the shop windows and causing internal structural damage to the building – tragically, the blast amputated the employees left leg from under his knee and severely injured his right foot.
Australian Standards 2030 – 2009 require that scuba cylinders be tested every 12 months – those that are tested and pass requirements are referred to as ‘in test’ – those that have not been tested in 12 months are ‘out of test’. The cylinder that failed at Stalkea Pty Ltd was out of test and it is not clear when it was last tested.
Stalkea Pty Ltd’s duty under s.21 of the OHS Act to provide a safe workplace and safe methods of work, could easily have identified the risk posed by out of test cylinders and it was reasonably practicable for the company to have eliminated or reduced the risk by ensuring that out of test cylinders were not stored with in test cylinders waiting for refilling.
Read more: Prosecution Result Summaries and Enforceable Undertakings | WorkSafe Victoria
Read about safety checks and recommended ways to control scuba cylinder risks here: Explosion during the filling of scuba cylinders | WorkSafe Victoria