Conveyor firm fined for death

Local conveyor fabricator R.J. Cyr has been fined a total of $156,250 following the 2016 workplace death of employee Dean (Dino) Trombley.

The 51-year-old father of five was killed on Nov. 16, 2016, when he was struck and pinned by falling steel conveyor frames as he was using a crane to lift them onto a support structure. Those frames should have been clamped securely before the crane detached them, according to a Ministry of Labour news release issued Monday following R.J. Cyr’s conviction by Justice of the Peace Angela Renaud in Windsor.

The firm, located in the Oldcastle area of Tecumseh on 8th Concession near Highway 401, pleaded guilty to failing to follow a section of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that requires material that “may tip or fall and endanger any worker shall be secured against tipping or falling.”

In addition to a $125,000 fine, the company must pay a 25 per cent victim surcharge fine which goes to a special Ontario government fund for victims of crime.

At the time of the accident, Trombley had been assigned to do touch-up work on a conveyor skid, which is a steel frame or base that holds a conveyor. It was almost 23 feet long, 33.5 inches wide and weighed 1,228 pounds. He used an overhead five-ton crane to lift it from a pile and place it on its side on top of a support structure, according to the ministry. He repeated the procedure with a second skid, again detaching the crane from the skid.

“The skids were not clamped to the support structure or otherwise secured when the crane was detached,” the news release said. Then, as Trombley was using a clamp to secure one of the skids to the support structure, the skid tipped toward him, “knocking the worker backward and pinning the worker to the concrete floor,” the release said.

Trombley was killed as a result. Though there were no witnesses, a video surveillance camera captured the tragedy.

A ministry investigator found no evidence that Trombley had been told the safe way to do the job — not disconnecting the skid from the crane until the skid was clamped to the support structure.

Friends and family held a wellattended celebration of his life a week after the accident. He had married his new wife Tanya earlier that year.