WORKER’S DEATH LEADS TO $125,000 FINE FOR GREAT NORTHERN INSULATION

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — A company where a worker died in 2018 while installing chains on a truck tire has been fined $125,000.

Plus a 25 per cent victim surcharge.

Great Northern Insulation (GNI), a Woodstock-based insulation company with a location in Gravenhurst, was convicted Feb. 25, following the Nov. 23, 2018 accident.

According to provincial news release today, GNI was charged with: “Failing to take reasonable precautions in the circumstances for the protection of a worker from the hazard of being struck by a moving vehicle not adequately immobilized when installing tire chains contrary to section 25(2)(h) of the OHSA.”

As a result: “Following a guilty plea, Justice of the Peace J. McMahon, of the Provincial Offences Court in Parry Sound, fined the company $125,000, with Crown lawyer Tom Schneider prosecuting the case.

The young worker, who was under age 25, worked out of GNI’s Gravenhurst location.

On the morning of Nov. 23, 2018, the worker and a co-worker had just left a worksite in Magnetawan in their truck.

The worker was driving. They had left the worksite because there was no room to park their truck. They were going to head to another job site.

And  they were in the process of turning around at an intersection in Magnetewan when the driving conditions convinced them to install tire chains as the road was very slippery.

The workers were installing chains on the front driver side tire when the truck, which had not been properly immobilized, and started rolling and sliding forward and fatally ran the first worker over, before coming to a stop in a snowbank.

The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

A Great Northern Insulation worker died while putting chains on a tire when the truck pinned him.

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