Worker struck by Bobcat bucket is Alberta’s 26th job-site fatality
A 45-year-old man died after being struck by the bucket of his Bobcat early Tuesday.
Police responded to SparMarathon Roofing Supplies at 9535 62nd Ave. after receiving a report of a workplace injury.
The self-employed worker, who was contracted by SparMarathon, was tending to a leaking hydraulic line on a Bobcat when the bucket fell on top of him.
The bucket hit him in the neck and pinned him between the arm of the bucket and the Bobcat, said police spokesman Scott Pattison.
Emergency crews pronounced him dead at the scene.
The bucket was suspended in the air and was not supported, said Brooks Merritt, spokesman with Occupational Health and Safety.
OHS was on scene Tuesday and a stop-use order was issued on the Bobcat.
Spar-Marathon Roofing Supplies declined to comment when reached Tuesday afternoon.
Police were attempting to notify next of kin and have not released the worker’s name.
Already this year, fatalities on Alberta job sites have exceeded last year’s deaths. By mid-October last year there were 15 deaths; this year there had been 21 deaths by mid-October.
November was a particularly deadly month with a string of four workplace deaths, including two in Calgary, and the others in St. Albert and near Carseland, bumping the total to 26 with this most recent death.
On Nov. 21, a 42-year-old man fell almost five metres from a ladder at a construction site on Bellerose Drive in St. Albert.
The worker later died in hospital.
Critics have been calling on the government to step up job-site inspections, and extend health and safety laws to farms and ranches. With files from Darcy Henton, Postmedia News oellwand@ edmontonjournal.com