Ontario Construction News staff writer
A St. Thomas-based contracting firm has been fined $55,000 after it was found to have failed to ensure workers were safely transporting steel trusses.
Gary D. Robinson Contracting Ltd. was issued a fine by the provincial court after pleading guilty to a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The incident happened in November 2022 when workers were using a hydraulic tracked excavator to load open web steel trusses onto a lowboy trailer.
Investigators said the workers were using a chain to rig the trusses to the bucket of the excavator and that one of the workers was responsible for chaining and unchaining the trusses between each lift.
The trusses were stacked on the trailer in two parallel piles that were nearly the length of the deck of the 53-foot trailer. While one worker was walking along a stack of trusses to unchain the most recently lifted truss, they felt the truss underneath their feet shift and jumped off the trailer.
A truss then slid and fell off the trailer, striking the worker and causing critical injuries. The employee was hospitalized in critical condition.
Investigators found that the trusses involved in the incident were wet and not properly secured to the trailer. They also found that there was no dunnage placed between each truss to prevent the trusses from slipping.
