Creative sentencing includes donation to construction association
Aecon Construction Group has been fined a total of $55,250 after a worker was disabled when he was struck by a beam on the Dalhousie University campus in Halifax. Aecon was fined $35,000 plus a $5,250 victim fine surcharge for breaching the Nova Scotia Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA).
The company is also required to pay $15,000 to Nova Scotia Construction Safety Association to create presentations on the proper assembly, disassembly, securing and storage of suspended scaffolds and their components.
On morning of Sept. 9, 2013, employees of Economy Glass arrived at the work site on the Dalhousie University. They required an L-shaped swing stage to do their work. That apparatus was located on a lower roof. In order to set up, Economy had to move other staging on that lower roof out of the way.
At the direction of the foreman for Economy, three workers were tasked with preparing the L-shaped staging for use after ensuring the swing stage equipment was safe to use. But they realized there was no power going to that swing stage motor. One worker was sent to discover the problem. He found the power cord was unplugged. He chose to plug it into the power supply. It gave power to the motor for the swing stage that needed to be moved out of Economy’s way. He continued to the upper roof to check on the rest of the swing stage apparatus for safety as he had been instructed to do by his foreman.
But before he could make his way to the penthouse roof where one of the outriggers for the swing stage that needed to be moved was located, another worker, Chris Conrod, powered up the motor on that swing stage and began to raise it from the lower roof. When that happened, the wire leading from the swing stage to the outrigger on the upper roof was observed to slacken and begin to coil on the lower roof. The outrigger to which it was attached was falling from the penthouse roof four or more floors above. Conrod was unable to get out of the way. The metal outrigger struck him in the back causing catastrophic injury to his back.
