A south Canterbury business will pay $100,000 in reparation to the family of an employee crushed to death while working at a quarry in March last year.
Scott Baldwin had been working at the Gordon Valley limestone quarry when he was killed. He was the quarry manager and sole regular employee on the quarry site.
Transport (Waimate) Limited pleaded guilty to two charges at Timaru District Court yesterday -- one charge of failing to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of Mr Baldwin and another of failing to ensure he had a current certificate of competence as a quarry manager.
Mr Baldwin started two diesel motors at the plant used for processing limestone -- one for the hammer mill and the other for the ancillary equipment -- both located in an open store shed on March 19. He was later found by a neighbour underneath the rotating machinery.
A WorkSafe investigation found the company failed to identify and manage the clear hazard posed by the quarry machinery. There were no processes in place to stop maintenance on machinery being carried out while the machinery was running, and there were no effective controls for an operator to stop the top motor in an emergency.
WorkSafe chief inspector Keith Stewart says there were a number of steps the company could have taken to prevent such an incident occurring. This included installing fixed guarding to make sure people could not reach into dangerous parts of machinery at all times, conducting regular audits for hazard identification, and making sure Mr Baldwin was not left to work alone and unsupervised.
"Large machinery used on quarries poses an inherent danger to anyone that comes into close contact with it," Mr Stewart says.
"Transport (Waimate) failed to protect its employee, and tragically, in this instance, Mr Baldwin has had to pay the ultimate price for the company's failings."
The company was also fined $54,000.
Newshub.
