Achi news desk-
A Saskatchewan judge has found SaskPower guilty of three workplace safety violations over an incident that killed two workers in Weyburn.
On October 8, 2020, two experienced SaskPower workers fell to their deaths when the bucket they were working in overturned.
The two were working on power lines at the time of the incident.
A recent court decision identifies the deceased as Scott Beal and Cole Crooks.
“Bill and Crooks were both experienced riders of 19 years and had been in the bucket countless times before,” Judge Michelle R. Brass said in her decision. “None of the workers had their safety belt lanyards anchored to the “D” ring located in the bucket specifically for fall protection.”
The deaths of the two men resulted in four Crown counts under provincial occupational health and safety regulations, alleging SaskPower failed to ensure health and safety in the workplace, failed to provide training and supervision and failed to properly require workers to use a personal fall arrest system before lifting into the air.
A fourth count accused SaskPower of failing to ensure that the two men were properly trained to use the bucket truck, but this was found not to be the case.
SaskPower denied the allegations in court, arguing the Crown had not proven the company beyond a reasonable doubt.
The court heard that although the two men were not ‘lost’ on the day of the incident, other workers of all experience levels who were on site that day testified that “every one of them forgot to fasten their shoelaces at one time or another”.
“One goes unmoored or disconnected because a worker goes up and down a large number of times and he will forget to enter,” the judge said.
Often, the court heard, the workers did not realize they had not been cut until they were back on the ground.
“None of the workers were reprimanded for not being harvested,” said the judge.
The assistant superintendent who was working with the crew the day of the accident said he didn’t check in if the two men got stuck in because he was focused on the live wires they were working with, making sure their machines weren’t too close and keeping an eye on surrounding traffic.
“Bill and Crooks were not harnessed or reminded by the assistant superintendent or the other employees in this lax environment,” Brass said. “Therefore they were allowed to work from a height without being properly anchored. But for these officials, the extreme dangers of not cutting and not being reminded to do so were realized when these workers were ejected from the bucket and fell 15 feet to their deaths.”
The process has since changed, with employees using a “three-way communication system” to ensure everyone sticks.
Another change in the process is that the work crews closely monitor the weight capacity of the buckets in use, with weighing scales made available to them. No weight calculations were performed on the day of the event.
The court was also provided with a contractor’s investigation that determined that the normal test guidelines for the truck’s bucket lifting system were not being followed despite known and ongoing problems.
SaskPower did provide information in safety bulletins about previous incidents where buckets were thrown by workers or workers fell from them, but those workers used their safety clips.
After laying out her reasoning, Brass found Saskatchewan guilty on three of the four counts because the Crown corporation had failed to establish that it practiced due diligence.
“The court accepts Bill and Crooks were well trained, very experienced and knew their jobs very well,” Brass said.
“However, the court does not accept that their qualifications could identify hazards associated with the surface limitations of the bucket truck in light of the evidence that this particular bucket had a tipping problem. These employees lacked the knowledge to properly calculate whether the bucket’s working surface could be safely used given this factor. However, this does not mean that the workers were not properly trained to use the bucket truck.”
The incident happened on Government Road South and 6th Avenue Southeast in Weyburn.
– with files from Mark Smith
