Worker found unresponsive in water
A Newfoundland and Labrador employer and a supervisor of the company has been charged following the death of one of its workers.
The incident happened in July 2023, when a man died in the water at a fish farming operation near St. Alban's on Newfoundland's south coast.
He was found unresponsive in the water.
Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The incident occurred on a barge where the employee was working.
The man was an employee of Nova Fish Farms, a subsidiary of Ocean Trout Canada based in Nova Scotia, according to a CBC report.
Following an investigation by the Department of Digital Government and Service NL’s Occupational Health and Safety Division, the provincial government announced on Friday that the employer has been charged with:
- Failure to provide and maintain a workplace and the necessary equipment, systems and tools to ensure worker safety.
- Failure to provide the information, instruction, training, supervision and facilities necessary to ensure worker safety.
- Failure to ensure that workers and supervisors are made familiar with the health and safety hazards in the workplace.
- Failure to ensure that safe work procedures are followed at the workplace.
- Failure to ensure that work procedures promote the safe interaction of workers and their work environment.
- Failure to ensure that a fixed or portable ladder, gangplank or other safe means was provided and used where necessary to board and leave floating equipment.
- Failure to ensure that where a worker is working in conditions that may expose the worker to a risk of drowning, the worker is wearing a personal floatation device.
- Failure to ensure that a work area on a vessel is kept clear of unnecessary obstructions.
- Failure to ensure that a work area on a vessel is kept free of slipping and tripping hazards.
Meanwhile, A supervisor with Nova Fish Farms Inc. is charged with failure to ensure the health, safety and welfare of all workers under his or her supervision.
The first appearances at the Provincial Court in Grand Falls-Windsor for both companies and the supervisor are scheduled for Feb. 26, 2025.
