Workplace deaths under investigation

One man crushed on service rig, another dies in truck accident

Two men are dead after separate workplace incidents near Highvale and in Fort McMurray.

Jennifer Dagsvik, a spokes- woman for Occupational Health and Safety, said the first man died about 4 p.m. Friday while he was servicing a well in the area near Highvale, close to Wabamun, 70 kilometres west of Edmonton.

The 24-year-old worker, employed by Essential Well Services, was on a service rig, pulling a rod out of a well hole when the hoisting assembly for the service rig fell on him, Dagsvik said.

“It fell from quite a height,” she said. A stop-work order has been issued for the prime contractor New Star Energy. Investigators with Occupational Health and Safety are still working on the case.

Other investigators are in Fort McMurray where a 48-year-old man died during construction of the Steinhauer Bridge over the Athabasca River. About 5:50 p.m. Friday, a large 53-foot triple-axle dump truck was parked on a slope, dumping its load with the box raised. It tipped onto a dump truck parked beside it, crushing and killing the driver, Dagsvik said.

The stop-work order on that site “will last as long as it takes to get the details,” Dagsvik said.

The prime contractor is Flatiron Construction Corp. and the sub-contractor is Stony Valley Contracting.

As of April, there were 15 Alberta workplace incident fatalities in 2013. Several others have been injured or died since, including a 28-year-old mechanic killed July 1 when a piece of equipment crushed him against a truck near Fort McMurray. A 32-year-old Hinton man died July 16 when he was struck and crushed by a pipe in an industrial incident north of Hinton.

There were 145 workplacerelated fatalities in 2012.