A contractor based out of St. Thomas has been fined $55,000 for its role in a 2022 incident that led to a worker’s injuries.

Gary D. Robinson Contracting Ltd is a general contractor that performs infrastructure construction work. The company pled guilty in a St. Thomas courtroom to a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In addition to the fine, it will pay a 25 percent victim fine surcharge that is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

The incident occurred in November 2022 at a worksite on Ron McNeil Line in St. Thomas.

On the day of the incident, workers were using a hydraulic tracked excavator to load open web steel trusses onto a lowboy trailer.

They were using a chain attached to the bucket of the excavator to rig the trusses to the bucket. One of the workers was then responsible for chaining and un-chaining the trusses between each lift.

The trusses were being stacked on the trailer in two parallel piles that stretched nearly the length of the deck of the 53-foot trailer.

A worker was walking along a stack of trusses on the trailer to unchain the most recently lifted truss when they felt the truss underneath their feet shift and jumped off the trailer.

A truss then slid and fell off the trailer striking the worker and causing a critical injury.

An investigation by the Ministry of Labour found that the trusses involved in the incident were wet, not secured on the trailer and were stacked metal-on-metal without any dunnage placed in between each truss to prevent slipping.

The company was found to have failed to ensure that steel trusses were transported, placed or stored in a manner that would not tip, collapse or fall.