Substantial fine for avoidable excavator death

Nationwide Towing and Transport was convicted and fined on two counts under the Occupational Health and Safety Act at the Melbourne County Court recently, following a 2007 incident where a 20-tonne excavator slipped as it was unloaded from a trailer.

“This workplace fatality was entirely avoidable,” said WorkSafe Acting Executive Director for Health and Safety Marlo Baragwanath. “The equipment provided by the company to do the job wasn’t appropriate, and the worker hadn’t been trained to identify the risks.”

The court heard the worker was trying to drive a steel-tracked excavator off a steel-decked trailer when the excavator slipped and fell to the ground, killing the worker.

WorkSafe’s investigation found the trailer was too narrow to support the excavator, and that the method of unloading was unsafe. The worker was required to drive the excavator from the trailer with its treads hanging over the sides of the trailer. The investigation also found that the surface of the steel-decked trailer didn’t provide enough grip, increasing the risk of the excavator slipping when the trailer was tilted.

“This death is even more tragic because it echoes a similar situation which occurred less than two years earlier, where no one was hurt,” Baragwanath continued. “Despite the company changing its administrative processes following the first incident, to prevent this type of trailer being used to transport this type of excavator, their systems failed and a worker died.”

Judge Michael Bourke stated during the sentencing that the trailer used was inappropriate for machinery of this type and size.