Ontario Construction News staff writer
A Rockwood construction company has been fined $125,000 and sentenced to 18 months probation after a worker died at Billy Bishop Airport in Toronto in March 2018.
A court bulletin from the province notes Vixman Construction Limited contravened the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
On March 27, 2018, workers were installing corrugated steel sheeting to create a roof over walkways at the airport between the gates and the tarmac.
Two workers were using self-retracting lifelines for fall protection and had full body harnesses.
“All of the fall protection equipment was appropriate for the tasks involved and functioning properly,” the court bulletin said, describing the offence as “failing as employer to ensure measures and procedures prescribed in section 26.6 (2) and 26.6(3) of O. Reg. 213/91 were carried out, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.”
The two workers were working close to each other and advancing along the walkway attaching the steel roof sheeting. They were moving the anchorage of their SRLs as they advanced.
“The first worker, with his supervisor standing beside him, anchored his SRL by choking a cable around an upright column supporting the roof structure. The worker was approximately 3.5 metres above the ground. The SRL block was lying on the already installed roof sheeting. He extended his lifeline approximately 6 metres from the anchored SRL block, across an open area,” the court bulletin explained.
The worker was working with his back to the SRL block, pulling the SRL block over the edge of the installed sheeting.
“As it was attached to a vertical column, and not to a horizontal member, the block dropped until its mechanism engaged. This exerted a pulling force on the worker’s body and he fell from the work surface. As he was working at a distance farther away from the SRL block than the distance of the height of the work surface, he hit the ground, and suffered fatal injuries.”
The SRL being attached to a fixed support, and that the length of the extended lifeline, over an open area, “was not a safe configuration of the fall protection equipment,” the bulletin concluded.
The court also imposed 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.