Harris Plumbing and Welding Pty Ltd was sub-contracted to undertake pipe work on the plant room roof of a vegetable and fruit cannery in Mooroopna in March 2022.
Four employees were using an Elevated Work Platform (EWP) to descend from the roof when the EWP ceased operation due to its overload feature activating. At the time the EWP stopped, it was located next to the fixed white platform, but its gate was positioned against the wall of the plant room building and could not be opened. The EWP also would not return to the roof to allow the gate to open. One of the employees exited the EWP to lighten the load.
The employee climbed over the EWP railing, and over the fixed white platform railing. As the employee stepped down onto the floor of the fixed white platform, the floor gave way, and they fell approximately 3.76 metres into a mostly empty skip bin positioned below landing on his feet. The employee broke the heel of his right foot requiring surgery to insert an orthopaedic plate, seven screws to hold the plate in place and a tension screw at the rear of the heel.
Despite the platform being engineer designed and the engineer specifying that the flooring was to be made of ‘webforge’ – a reinforced material with appropriate load bearing properties – particleboard had been used for the temporary flooring.
The particleboard material used for the temporary flooring of the platform was inappropriate and was in a deteriorated condition from previous exposure to the weather. It was likely that the exposure to the weather caused a considerable loss of strength of the flooring, significantly reducing its capacity.
Harris Plumbing and Welding pleaded guilty to a charge for failing to control the risks associated with a fall from height of greater that two metres. It was reasonably practicable for Harris Plumbing and Welding to have reduced the risk by instructing sub-contractors not to exceed the weight capacity of the EWP, ensuring sub-contractors were trained on EWP emergency rescue procedures, instructing the sub-contractors not to exit the EWP whilst in an elevated position and/or having an emergency rescue trained safety observer on ground level.
Previously, the co-offending primary contractor and subcontractor on this job were fined $40,000 and $10,000 respectively for their parts in this incident – see previous article
Read more: Prosecution Result Summaries and Enforceable Undertakings | WorkSafe Victoria
