NSW Courts have fined a Griffith business $120,000 after an incident left an apprentice welder with a broken leg and fractures to his cheek and eye socket.
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In 2015, the 24-year-old apprentice was hit by a steel beam that was being lifted by a crane. He was thrown from the platform onto the body of the crane.
The injuries left him hospitalised for two weeks and requiring three surgeries.
The company, Hydro Clean (Griffith) Pty Ltd, provides light engineering services.
When handing down the ruling, Judge Russell said the situation could have been a lot worse.
“It was only a matter of luck that he was not killed or catastrophically injured,” he said.
The ruling said the risk of accident happening was “obvious” and the “likelihood of the risk coming home was quite high”.
The SafeWork investigation said that that apprentice had been instructed to rig the beam to the crane despite not having the appropriate high risk licence.
It was found that the company had not taken proper measures to ensure that rigging work was performed by someone with the appropriate licence.
On the day of the incident, the regular rigger was not available. The company did not request someone else.
The maximum potential penalty was a fine of $1.5 million. The initial fine of $160,000 was reduced because of the guilty plea entered by the company.
The court found the incident was a “one-off”, the company was unlikely to re-offend and had taken steps to make sure that similar incidents didn’t occur in future. The instance was also the first since the company began trading.
It was agreed the company would pay legal costs.
“We deeply regret the incident, and have accepted the Safe Work and courts decision,” a spokesman for Hydro Clean Griffith said.
”New systems have been implemented since to ensure the safety of our employees and sub-contractors. We are thankful the injuries were not permanent or fatal.”