No hard hat for victim

Demolition firm pleads guilty to workplace safety breaches

A MAN had his skull fractured when he was hit by falling debris on his first day at work with a Moriac demolition company.

Digga Demolition and Excavations P/L admitted the employee should have been wearing a helmet.

The 28-year-old was working for the firm at a site in Don- caster when the incident happened on October 14 last year.

The company was slugged more than $30,000 in Geelong Magistrates’ Court last week after being prosecuted by WorkSafe and pleading guilty to two workplace safety breaches.

The court heard none of the workers on the site that day was wearing a hard hat, and the new employee had not been properly inducted.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie was told surgeons inserted a plate in the victim’s head because of his injury, and the man also needed speech therapy.

“Had he been wearing a hard hat he may still have been injured but the injury would have likely been less severe,” Ms McGarvie said.

The lawyer for the familybased business said the firm had safety policies but admitted there had been a “failing” on the day.

The court heard the man had worked as a truck driver in the excavation industry for the previous five years, and the company had told him since the incident it still had a job available for him when he was ready to return to work.

With 28 employees in Geelong and Moriac, Digga Demolition and Excavations was described in court as a good corporate citizen, committed to recycling and sponsoring community projects and groups.

The court heard this was the first safety breach since the firm was established in 2000.

Remorseful for its negligence, the firm had since revised its policies and taken improved measures to protect its workers, the court heard.

Ms McGarvie agreed to the defence submission not to impose a conviction on the business, noting the impact that might have on the firm’s hopes of securing tenders.

She fined the company $27,000 on charges of failing to have a safe work method statement in place and failing to provide training to employees so they could perform their work safely and without risk to health, and ordered it pay costs of $3880 to WorkSafe.