Court Summary - at a glance

Date of offence:
23 June 2014
 
Plea:
Guilty
 
Decision:
Convicted
 
Final decision date:
 
Fine imposed:
$31,500

Safety lessons learned:
  1. Ensure that employees are provided with equipment that enables them to see persons in the vicinity of vehicles, such as (but not limited to) installing a reversing camera to the truck loader and convex side mirrors.
  2. Ensure that the employees were provided with the ability to alert persons in the vicinity that they were reversing by installing flashing reversing warning lights on the loader and/or installing a travel alarm on the loader to indicate when the loader is reversing.
  3. Ensure that employees were provided with a traffic management plan which both detailed and delineated the areas where vehicles and other employees or people were or would be working.
  4. Ensure that an employee is available and designated as a spotter to guide reversing truck loaders in areas in the traffic management where other employees or other people are or would be working.

Defendant name:
Ravensdown Aerowork Limited
 
Industry:
Agriculture
 
Date of offence:
23 June 2014
 
Facts in brief:
Ravensdown Aerowork Limited (RAL) specialises in the aerial application of fertiliser and agricultural spraying. RAL was contracted to carry out aerial bait operations at the Curraghmore airstrip.

On 23 June 2014, two RAL employees arrived in the morning at the airstrip and the owner of the station and a farmhand arrived shortly after. At approximately 8am, a RAL employee arrived at the airstrip in the RAL Fuso truck loader and began to prepare the load by unfolding the loaders’ hopper into its operational position. This included wiring the hopper grill out of the way inside the hopper.

Another RAL employee walked to Fuso track, having seen where two others were working on the hopper. At this point, one of the workers was reversing a second truck toward the Fuso– the RAL employees and worker were facing away from this truck.

The two truck loaders collided and one RAL employee was pushed clear of the hopper. Another was pushed into the open hopper and the third was crushed between the reversing truck’s bumper and the lip of the stationary Fuso’s hopper.

The worker who was crushed died the following day from his injuries at the hospital.
 
Offence section:
Section 15 Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992
 
Date(s) charged:

Court:
Timaru - District Court
 
Plea:
Guilty
 
Final decision date:
 
Decision:
Convicted
 
Fine imposed:
$31,500
 
Maximum fine available:
$250,000
 
Reparation:
$65,000