Worker suffered a broken leg, broken collar bone, concussion and brain injury
All Canada Crane Rental must pay a total of $53,000 for an offence contrary to Nova Scotia’s Workplace Health and Safety Regulations where a worker suffered a broken leg, broken collar bone, concussion and brain injury and spent two weeks in hospital. The company was fined $20,000, plus a $3,000 victim fine surcharge. It was also required to make a $30,000 donation to the Minister’s Occupational Health and Safety Education Trust Fund.
All Canada Crane Rental previously operated a crane yard in Goodwood, N.S. On July 17, 2017, its employees were using a crane to unload crane boom sections from a flat-bed truck and stack them in the yard. During this work, employee James Beaudin fell inside the crane boom section to the ground, landing on a steel lattice. Beaudin suffered serious injuries and he has not been able to return to work.
The distance from where Beaudin was working was less than three metres, but the work area was above a surface or thing that could cause injury to the person on contact. As a result, fall protection was required.
“There was no reason not to do this work safely,” said senior Crown attorney Alex Keaveny. “Sadly, this is another case where the real explanation for the lack of safety is ‘This was just how they always did things.’ The risks were obvious and should have been obvious to All Canada. Using fall protection would have been cheap and easy.”
All Canada Crane Rental entered a guilty plea on April 10 to an offence contrary to section 21.2 (1)(b) of the Workplace Health and Safety Regulations, NS Reg52/2013, being an offence contrary to section 74(1)(a) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
