After a worker sustained critical injuries at a Newmarket construction site, Woodbridge company Innovative Metal Works Inc. was fined $68,000 following a guilty plea in an Ontario Court of Justice courtroom on Sept. 20.
The construction worker was critically injured after a nylon hoisting strap used to hold a lateral assembly beam to a crane broke, causing the beam to swing and fall on him.
Innovative Metal Works failed, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures were carried out at the workplace, contrary to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, by not ensuring to take steps to protect the nylon hoisting strap from being cut, according to the court.
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 crime victims.
Innovative Metal Works was contracted to construct the steel for a new three-storey addition, which was part of a major renovation and expansion project at the Postmark Hotel, 180 Main St. S.
On Feb. 27, 2023, at about 1 p.m., the company had three workers constructing the steel for the new addition. One worker was at ground level, rigging loads to a crane to be hoisted, and the other workers were on the third level, where two scissor lifts were used to install and connect the beams once hoisted.
The ground-level worker connected one end of a nylon hoisting strap to the centre of a lateral assembly beam with a choke hitch and attached the other end to the crane hook block. The crane then lifted the beam to be placed and connected.
The lateral assembly beam, still being moved by the crane, was near its final position and ready to be bolted into place when the nylon hoisting strap holding it to the crane broke. The beam swung and fell, critically injuring the ground-level worker.
York Regional Police said officers and an air ambulance responded to the call. Fire trucks and ambulances were also on the scene.
Central York Fire Services reports that the worker was "carefully transferred from the roof to an ambulance," an then taken to a Toronto trauma centre via an Ornge air ambulance.
An investigation by the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development, the regulatory body responsible for workplace safety in Ontario, determined that the nylon strap used to hoist the lateral assembly beam was cut when it came into contact with the sharp capping plate on the assembly. There was no evidence of edge protection being used to preserve the integrity of the nylon hoisting strap as it contacted sharp edges on the assembly.
