THUNDER BAY, ONT. — An Orillia, Ont. firm was recently convicted and fined in a Thunder Bay provincial offences court for its role in a 2017 mishap in which a worker suffered an injury when a concrete structure collapsed on top of an excavator.
SL Marketing, formally known as 1481410 Ontario Limited, was undertaking a demolition operation at the former Kraft Paper Mill in Thunder Bay in November 2017, stated a Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development account of the case.
After site orientations were performed, workers drilled holes into columns in three concrete structures on site.
Explosives were inserted into the 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.
Following that, 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.
The worker began softening the walls, and the approximately 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 with a non-life-threatening injury.
He was later freed and taken to hospital.
The ministry 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.
As a result, the company did not provide an appropriate safeguard in the circumstances to prevent injury to a worker.
The court found this contravened section 212(1)(b) of the Construction Projects Regulation (Regulation 213/91) and that the company failed, as an employer, 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.
Following a guilty plea, on Nov. 22 1481410 Ontario Limited was fined $65,000.
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