Prosecution Details

On 26 March 2007 the Accused failed to, so far as practicable, provide and maintain a working environment in which employees of the employer were not exposed to hazards and by that failure caused serious harm: contrary to sections 19(1) and 19A(2) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984.

The Accused operated a business that resized hay bales for export.  The Accused operated out of premises located at Lot 16 Pennington Road, Wandering.  The premises contained an item of plant that consisted of a variety of electric and hydraulically powered machinery that shredded large hay bales and compressed and resized them.

Part of this item of plant was called the "cutter box" because it could be fitted with a blade to cut resized bales in half.  This part of the plant consisted of an hydraulic ram and an electronic eye that identified when a bale had been conveyed to the receiving bin of the cutter box so that it could then be cut or ejected to be stacked.  At none of the material times was the cutter box fitted with a blade.  Depending on the type of hay being used the cutter box sometimes jammed frequently.

An emergency stop lanyard was also present and ran up to the cutter box.  Pulling the lanyard stopped the unitiser and activated a yellow flag.  In order to re-start the unitiser an operator had to firstly re-set the isolation switch which was located next to the cutter box and then the unitiser could be restarted from the console which was located away from the cutter box.

History of similar incidents at the workplace

On 1 March 2006 an employee of the Accused was operating the plant when a resized bale became jammed in the "cutter box".

The employee went to the cutter box and attempted to remove the bale by hand.  He did not isolate the plant so his actions in removing the bale triggered the electronic eye and activated the cutter box ram, crushing his hand against the side of the box.  He had approximately 40 days off work.

On 15 December 2006 an employee of the Accused was operating the plant when a resized bale became jammed in the "cutter box".

The employee went to the cutter box and attempted to remove the bale by hand.  He did not isolate the plant so his actions in removing the bale triggered the electronic eye and activated the cutter box ram, crushing his hand against the side of the box.  He required approximately 5 days off work.

The Charge - 27 March 2007

On 26 March 2007 the injured person was an employee of the Accused.  He was operating the plant when a resized bale became jammed in the "cutter box".

He had been instructed by the site manager and a fellow employee that if he was required to remove a jammed bale from the cutter box that he should pull the emergency lanyard and stop the unitiser first.  However, he had witnessed other employees removing bales from the cutter box without stopping the unitiser first.

He went to the cutter box and attempted to remove the bale by hand.  He did not pull the lanyard to stop the unitiser.  His actions in removing the bale triggered the electronic eye and activated the cutter box ram, crushing his hand against the side of the box.  He had surgery to amputate part of his left hand ring finger.

Isolation

The Accused had a policy which required the emergency lanyard next to the cutter box to be activated to stop the unitiser before removing the jammed bale.  This was inadequate in that although the restart was a two stage process there was no physical key or padlock preventing another person undertaking the two stage restart.  There was also no requirement to put a tag on the plant to tell other employees not to turn it on.

Pleaded Guilty