Forklift driver fined over fatal fall

Forklift driver Geoffrey Poole was fined $5600 and ordered to undertake a formal assessment of his competence to operate a forklift following an incident in which a visiting stock controller was fatally injured in a fall at Paskeville, South Australia, in 2006.

Poole was fined in the SA Industrial Relations Court after pleading guilty to breaches of the Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act 1986, requiring an employee to take reasonable care to avoid adversely affecting the health or safety of any other person at a workplace.

SafeWork SA prosecuted the loader operator after investigating an incident in 2006, in which Gavin Wang was fatally injured in a fall from the raised tines of a forklift operated by Poole.

During a stocktake of haybales in a shed, Poole was assisting Wang, who asked to be raised to the top of a large stack. In contravention of both the written and verbal instructions of his employer, SP Hay, not to carry anyone aloft in anything but a personnel box, Poole lifted Wang to a height of 5.8 metres at the end of his telescopic loader, from where he fell. The employer owned two personnel boxes to be used in such tasks, with at least one available on the day.

Wang suffered extensive injuries in the fall and suffered a cardiac arrest shortly thereafter, with paramedics unable to revive him.

Industrial Magistrate Stephen Lieschke said the operator should have known better:

“Poole … disregarded his forklift training, his employer’s instructions and no doubt his own better judgement. As a mature and highly experienced worker, Poole’s reckless actions are inexcusable.”

The maximum fine for an offence in this instance involving an employee [section 21(1a)] is $10,000. For an early guilty plea and contrition, Magistrate Lieshcke discounted the penalty to $5600 but ordered Poole to undertake a formal assessment of his competency to operate powered loaders.

SafeWork SA Executive Director Michele Patterson says a workplace safety system can only be effective when employees are committed and diligent in following it, especially when dealing with such an easily avoidable hazard as falling.