By Robin MacLennan
Ontario Construction News staff writer
An Orillia company has been fined $65,000 after a worker suffered non-life-threatening injuries on a construction site near Thunder Bay.
The incident happened Nov. 14, 2017, when 1481410 Ontario Limited, operating as SL Marketing, was conducting a demolition operation/construction project at the former Kraft Paper Mill in the community of Red Rock. According to the Ministry of Labour news release, a concrete structure collapsed on top of an excavator, trapping the operator under rubble for several hours.
SL Marketing pleaded guilty and was fined in provincial offences court in Thunder Bay on Nov. 22.
The Ministry of Labour investigated the incident and determined that “even though the company had trained its workers in how to perform demolition work, a second assessment had not been performed following the initial test blast to determine the building’s structural integrity as required by the procedures.”
Details of are included in a ministry news release:
After site orientations were performed, workers drilled holes into columns in three concrete structures on site. Explosives were inserted into those holes, and they were detonated as test blasts. The test blasts were performed under the direction of a supervisor.
The blasts did not bring the structures down and the site was then left for several days to settle. On Nov. 14, 2017, an excavator with an attached pulverizer was brought to the site. The operator was instructed to “soften” one of the structure’s walls using the pulverizer. The intention was that after the walls had been softened, a further blast would be set off to bring the structure down.
As the worker began softening the walls, a 65-foot concrete structure collapsed on top of the excavator. The worker was trapped in the excavator’s cab for several hours, buried under rubble. He was later freed, taken to hospital and treated for a non-life-threatening injury.
The ministry ruled that section 212(1)(b) of the Construction Projects Regulation (Regulation 213/91) was contravened and the company failed to ensure that the measures and procedures prescribed were carried out in the workplace, contrary to section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
“The company did not provide an appropriate safeguard in the circumstances to prevent injury to a worker, (that is, a second structural assessment),” the statement said.