WorkSafe investigation into another workplace fatality

A man was fatally injured in West Melbourne after being crushed by a large plastic water tank.

WorkSafe inspectors are investigating the death of a worker after a large plastic water tank fell on the man in West Melbourne. WorkSafe understands the incident occurred at a vehicle rental company.

The man died while helping a member of the public move a large plastic water tank with a capacity of about 22,000 litres. The death is the 17th workplace fatality of 2010 - the third in the month of August and the second to occur in the last eight days. A man died when he fell from a grain storage bunker in Geelong in August.

“If you’re moving large items by hand without any kind of backup safety system in place, you’re putting yourself at risk,” WorkSafe’s Manufacturing Director, Ross Pilkington, said. “There’s a way to go about every job and stay safe.

“We want workers to put in a bit of extra time to plan how they’re going to do a job, carry it out according to that plan and stay safe.”

This is the fifth workplace incident this year where a heavy item has fallen on and killed a worker. In July, a man died at Appleton Dock when a 3-tonne steel beam fell from its clamps. In June, a female worker at a vineyard was fatally struck by a falling tree limb during windy weather. In May, a man died after a metal silo full of barley toppled onto him. And in January, a man died when computer equipment fell on him while being unloaded from a truck.