05:56 pm, Thursday 29 July, 2010

A drilling firm has pleaded guilty in the industrial court yesterday over a work-related death in its gas rig in Moomba.

The company pleaded guilty to failing to maintain a safe work environment and failure to appoint a responsible officer to ensure the company met safety obligations.

In January 2008, a 36-year-old drilling assistant from Queensland died after being pinned by equipment.

The court was told manual tongs were being clamped onto a drilling pipe when the structure moved towards the man.

According to prosecutor Brad McCloud, hydraulic tongs should have been used for the job. He said the work should not have been performed in the confined space on the drilling deck when they were being tightened.

The court heard the workers were pressed for time, so they decided to use manual tongs to save them about 30 minutes.

The court was told by the defendant’s lawyer that the company accepted its wrongdoing and would ensure the incident will never happen again. The court heard a $100,000 trust fund was set up by the drilling firm for the worker’s partner and children.

The workplace fatality was the first since tougher penalties were introduced at the start of 2008. The change in regulations has tripled the maximum fine for each charge to $300,000.

The court is expected to deliver a penalty in September.

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01:38 pm, Thursday 13 May, 2010

A young worker who died in a tragic industrial accident was described as a person who needed more time to be confident whenever he took on a new task, the South Australian Coroner’s Court heard yesterday.

A toolmaker who worked with the apprentice appeared before the court, saying the young man took longer to be comfortable when assigned a new job but didn’t make mistakes.

He added there was no stopping the worker once he understood the work at hand.

“Once he grasped things, he was off, leaps and bounds,” the toolmaker said.

An 18-year-old apprentice was killed in 2004 while working around a horizontal boring machine.

The unguarded plant got snagged to his dust coat, which dragged him into the large drill and flung him around.

He sustained numerous fatal injuries, including brain hemorrhage, torn spine, broken arms and legs, and severed feet.

He momentarily regained consciousness prior to the arrival of the ambulance. However, he died in the hospital the next day because of the multiple injuries.

The Industrial Court fined the employer $72,000 last year after pleading guilty to violating workplace safety laws.

Asked if the young worker made many errors while working, the witness said he couldn’t remember any major mistakes.

“Big ones are where you have to throw steel away,” he said.

“I don’t recall ever having to throw something away with [him].”

The inquest was ongoing.

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09:00 am, Friday 16 April, 2010

A drilling company is about to be sentenced next month over a workplace incident which cost the life of its worker in 2007.

The Goldfields company has pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain systems of work.

In March 2007, a 19-year-old employee was working at a Gindalbie Station, 50 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie. He was struck by a pressure hose, which resulted to his death.

During sentencing submissions on Wednesday, the Kalgoorlie Magistrates Court was told basic safety procedures on the use of the equipment were not followed.

The Court also heard the company was extremely remorseful about what happened to its employee, and had gone through financial woes since the incident.

The Court will hand down the sentence on May 6.

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