An earthmoving company will pay for its alleged poor handling of a workplace accident.
Hamiltons Blasting Services (HBS) was recently fined $300,000 for breaching section 31 of the Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act through causing “reckless” risk of workplace death or serious injury at Albury Quarry in Ettamogah, about 330km southwest of Canberra.
HBS will pay a further $12,000 for contravening section 15 of the Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Act by failing to notify the New South Wales Resources Regulator about flyrock striking employees.
Debris almost struck 12 workers during overburden blasting back on 10 April 2018. Three light vehicles and two excavators in the immediate vicinity of these people were also struck. A piece of rock measuring approximately 400 x 200 x 200 millimetres struck the shotfirer’s utility, knocked the vehicle’s bonnet off its mounts, smashed through the front windscreen and landed on the driver’s seat.
At the time four people were about 275 metres from the loaded shot that was to be fired (the blast area). Others, including the shotfirer, were about 320 metres from the blast area.
The business copped an extra $12,000 penalty for violating section 17 of the same legislation after “disturbing the incident scene”. This followed allegations that witnesses were asked to delete video footage of the blast. The incident was not reported to the regulator until 7 September 2018. Circumstances surrounding the incident were finally provided to authorities two months later.
HBS director David Hamilton was also handed a $22,500 fine for breaching section 32 of the WHS Act by failing to prevent the health and safety of others from being adversely affected.
Authorities claim the District Court of NSW’s decision represents the “second conviction for a category one offence” ever recorded across the Premier State.
A video has since been released to share lessons learnt from the incident.
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