Firm fined after farm trench fell in on worker
I was buried alive: Man still suffers the torment of trench collapse
Belinda Feek
Open Justice
Anthony Wanoa still suffers the psychological trauma of being “buried alive” in 20 cubic metres of dirt after a trench he was standing in collapsed around him.
The 43-year-old’s colleague had to frantically use his hands and a spade to dig him free.
Wanoa and a colleague were employed by O¯torohanga earthmoving and civil construction business R&L Drainage Ltd and were in the middle of extending a dairy effluent pond on a Te Ku¯iti farm on February 17, 2020.
Wanoa was tasked with measuring the depth of the trench but had no experience using the equipment. His colleague was using a digger.
Company director Ross Pevreal went to the site to help set up the laser and pole and gave a demonstration while standing on the floor of the trench. Pevreal left to head to another job but failed to mention the dangers of working on the trench floor.
Wanoa and his colleague got to work cutting a 25m long, 1m to 3m high trench into the side of a slope on the property.
As Wanoa’s colleague used the digger and bucket to clear out part of the wall as they reached 3m high part of it began to crumble.
Wanoa began running but he became fully engulfed in the soil.
During the company’s sentencing in the Hamilton District Court on Thursday, there remained contention around how long it took to free Wanoa.
WorkSafe prosecutor Kitty Opetaia claimed it was about 45 minutes, but R&L Drainage Ltd’s counsel, Matthew King, said it was more like 30 minutes.
Either way, Wanoa’s colleague initially used his hands to clear the dirt away so he could breathe, before using a spade to dig and eventually pull him free from the 20 cubic metres of soil that surrounded him.
Judge Kim Saunders found that in any event, “for Mr Wanoa even one minute or 30 seconds must have felt like a lifetime”.
He suffered a collapsed lung, a broken rib cage, a broken sternum, and a broken collarbone that took him 12 months to recover from. He lives with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because of the incident.
In his victim impact statement read to the court, he said felt he could no longer live in O¯ torohanga due to rumours that circulated about how and what happened, while even his friends began avoiding him.
“I suffered both physically and psychologically as a result of being buried alive in a trench collapse.
“I had two years in fear thinking I would be to blame for all of this . . . I have had to live it over and over.”
Opetaia said that given the company’s work revolved around excavation, the risks associated with the job should have been obvious. Not only did Pevreal fail to carry out a risk assessment, he never did a geotechnical assessment on the soil.
She acknowledged the company’s good record, early guilty plea and remorse.
Asked what went wrong by Judge Saunders, King said Pevreal went to another site induction which took longer than expected.
“It was on his way back to the site that the accident occurred. If Mr Pevreal had been on site this would not have happened . . . he would have been supervising the trench.”
He would have told Wanoa that he didn’t need to step into the trench to use the equipment, King said.
After discussion around the financial capability of the company, and how much it could pay, Judge Saunders started at $500,000 before landing at $275,000.
The judge agreed with Worksafe’s submission that the company’s degree of departure from its obligations was “stark”. “Mr Pevreal’s demonstration to the inexperienced Mr Wanoa was woefully inadequate.”
Both parties had earlier agreed to pay $45,000 emotional harm reparation to Wanoa which she also ordered, along with a $1496 ACC topup and regulator’s costs of $6240.59 on a charge of exposing both workers to a risk of death or serious injury, arising from a trench collapse.
R&L Drainage was convicted and discharged on a second charge of failing to notify its intention to dig a trench deeper than 1.5m.
Wanoa now works as a business development manager.