Worker crushed while loading equipment

30 April 2010

A heavy haulage company was convicted and fined in the Melbourne County Court yesterday, after a worker was crushed while loading an elevated work platform onto the trailer of a truck.

Redline Towing and Salvage Pty Ltd was fined $130,000 after pleading guilty to two charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004.

44 year-old Redline employee Colin Todd had completed a number of heavy haulage deliveries since joining the company in 2002 – yet he had never received training or guidance on how to safely load an elevated work platform (EWP).

The incident occurred in February 2007, when Mr Todd was loading an EWP onto the back of a tilt tray truck.

Mr Todd was loading the EWP from the basket of the EWP. The EWP was not connected to the winch on the truck. While lowering the basket, it made contact with the tilt tray, causing the rear wheels of the EWP to lift off the ground.

There were no brakes on the front wheels of the EWP, which rolled backwards with significant force - crushing the driver between the basket and the ground.

WorkSafe Victoria’s investigation found that there was no adequate information or training provided by Redline to its drivers about appropriate safety procedures around loading and unloading of equipment on to its trucks.

WorkSafe’s Acting Executive Director for Health and Safety Stan Krpan said the incident was brought about by lack of appreciation of the danger of the machinery.

“The risks should have been obvious,” he said.

“This is a company which had a safety culture, from the director down, of taking dangerous risks - which considered it acceptable to load an EWP without using a winch cable, and with the driver in the basket.

“It’s probably a procedure which they carried out hundreds of times – without anyone ever questioning it.

“If Redline had simply trained its employees on how to safely load and unload equipment, and enforced this training, this tragedy could have been prevented,” he said.