Kitchener site fall leads to $60K fine for Innisfil contractor
A worker’s fall on a condominium building site has led to a fine of $60,000 for an Innisfil-based formwork contractor.
MTN Construction Inc. pled guilty in provincial offences court to charges relating to failing to brace a temporary structure on a construction site. The company was given its fine on April 19. It will also pay a 25-percent surcharge that goes to support victims of crime.
The incident occurred on February 10, 2020 at a high-rise condominium building site on King Street North in Waterloo. MTN Construction had been subcontracted by developers CTN King to provide the concrete formwork at the project.
On the day the accident happened, the concrete work at the project had progressed to the third floor of the building. That morning two MTN workers were installing column formwork for the walls on the perimeter of the third floor.
The forms were made to be installed on rebar already in place. In certain places, the rebar was bent 90 degrees at the top, requiring the formwork to be split into two L-shaped forms in order to fit around the rebar. Workers had installed between 50 and 150 similar columns, some of which were of the same L-shaped type. The forms were lifted into place by a tower crane.
That morning, one worker directed the crane operator to lower the first L-shaped form, where it was affixed around the rebar. One side of the form was on the exterior south side of the floor, and the other was on the interior east side. The worker installed one shoring post on an angle to support the interior side of the form. Although it was the normal practice to also brace the exterior side, in this instance no shoring or bracing was installed to support the exterior side.
The worker tied fall protection equipment on to the first L-shaped formwork once it was in place. The crane then moved the second L-shaped formwork section to the third floor. Moving it into place was more difficult because of the bend in the rebar, and it was requiring some manipulation by the crane operator and by the worker at the floor level.
At some point, the centre of gravity of the first formwork section shifted south, away from the building, and the approximately-550-pound formwork fell over the edge of the building, pulling the worker who was tied to it to the ground.
As a result of falling approximately 21 feet to the ground, the worker sustained serious injuries.
A subsequent investigation by the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development found that while MTN had a written formwork procedure, workers had not been specifically trained on the procedure and were not aware there was a specific written procedure, although they were aware that bracing was required.
The procedure also did not contain any specific procedure for bracing formwork. In addition, the formwork engineering drawings did not include any information on how forms should be braced.
All workers had working at heights training, but had not been given site-specific training, and had not been trained on where and how to properly tie off their fall protection equipment on this job site. MTN had a site tie-off procedure, but none of the workers had been trained on it prior to the incident. Fall protection equipment was made available to workers, but it was left to the workers to decide which type of fall arrest equipment was appropriate for any given circumstance.