New Brunswick steel firm fined after worker crushed at Acton plant

BURLINGTON, ONT. — A New Brunswick-based steel company has been fined following a 2016 incident that occurred in Acton, Ont. in which a worker was crushed by a falling steel truss.

AZZ Galvanizing Canada Limited of Saint John, N.B. was fined $65,000 on April 10 for violating an Ontario Industrial Establishments regulation.

The incident occurred at an industrial plant in July 2016, a Ministry of Labour statement recounts.

The worker was working as part of a night shift crew galvanizing steel trusses. Part of the galvanization process includes manual cleaning of the truss for quality control.

A forklift is used to move trusses to the shop floor for cleaning. Each steel truss is about 18 metres long and weighs about 450 kilograms.

That night, the forklift used to move the trusses was smaller than the forklift normally used, which was in for repairs.

It was also the first time the smaller forklift had been used to lift a load of trusses of that size and weight.

A safety sensor in the operator’s seat was not working at the time, the statement indicated.

In normal operation, when the forklift’s operator is not seated, the sensor engages a lock system that does not allow the forklift mast to lift, lower or tilt until the operator returns to the seat.

On the shop floor, the operator left the forklift unattended during the clean-up process. The sensor did not engage the lock system.

To accommodate the cleanup, the forks were raised approximately 0.75 to 0.90 metres above the shop floor.

The load of trusses on the forklift was also not braced or restrained from tipping in any way.

The worker and a co-worker were cleaning the trusses when one truss tipped from the forks and fell on the worker. The worker suffered crushing injuries.

It was determined in a Burlington court the defendant had failed to ensure that an operator attend a lifting device’s controls when its load was in a raised position.

This contravened section 51(2)(b)(iii) of Regulation 851 (Industrial Establishments), violating section 25(1)(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.