Worker critically injured after falling from equipment
Ontario employer Marvara Farms Ltd. has been fined $175,000 after one of its workers was critically injured in the workplace.
Following a guilty plea in the Provincial Offences Court in Guelph, the employer was also tasked to pay a 25 per cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident happened in Drayton, Ont. on Jan. 10, 2023, when workers were on an elevated platform separating recycling products onto various conveyors. Cardboard packaging was getting caught on two pipes that went across one conveyor.
A worker moved from the elevated platform to a sloped chute that led to the cardboard conveyor and attempted to clear the jam using a stick but was unable to. The worker then climbed further up onto the equipment near the end of the conveyer to get better access to clear the blockage and was standing with one foot on a cardboard conveyor gearbox with the other foot on a conveyor pulley guard.
As the worker was freeing the cardboard, the worker slipped and fell into a 70-inch-deep baler hopper while it was running. The worker was critically injured.
A Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development investigation revealed the cause of the incident was that all hazardous motion was not prevented before attempting to unjam the cardboard above the baler hopper. The cardboard baler was still running. This allowed the compacting ram to move forward while the worker was inside the hopper.
“Marvara Farms Ltd. failed, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed by section 76 of Ontario Regulation 851/90 at a workplace were enforced, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act,” said the Ontario government.
