Kimberley Quarry was fined $160,000 over a workplace incident that led to a machine operator and an employee falling more than three metres, causing spinal fracture and internal bleeding.
Kimberley Quarry was fined $160,000 over a workplace incident that led to a machine operator and an employee falling more than three metres, causing spinal fracture and internal bleeding.
The Quarrying services company pleaded guilty in the Geraldton Magistrates Court, to two offences of exposing workers to a risk of death, injury or harm to health and failing to reserve the site of a notifiable incident.
It comes after two workers sustained internal bleeding, ligament damage, back injuries, and sprained wrist and elbow, which led to about three months in a brace.
The company was fined on Friday, WorkSafe announced in a statement.
According to WorkSafe, the incident occurred when a screening machine operator was performing a routine task on a horizontal screener at the Chapman Valley Quarry in the state’s Mid West in June 2022.
The screener had different screens to enable quarries to make different sized rock products.
WorkSafe said the machine operator and a less experienced colleague were on the top deck of the screener, removing screen panels of up to 30 kilograms and throwing them to the ground from a height of about 3.18 metres.
However, there was no edge protection or fall restraint system in place.
“When the screening machine operator threw one of the screens from the horizontal screener, the panel’s wire hooks caught on their jumper and pulled them off the screener,” WorkSafe said in its statement.
“Their fall resulted in internal bleeding, ligament damage, a sprained wrist and elbow, a forearm laceration and several back injuries, the most severe of which was a fractured L2 vertebra.
“They spent about 12 weeks in a brace and returned to work about five months after the event.”
WorkSafe said Kimberley Quarry also failed to preserve the site of the incident by directing its workers to complete the task of changing the screens after emergency services left the facility and before the watchdog’s supervisor arrived.
Kimberley Quarry had a safe work procedure in place at the time of the event, WorkSafe noted.
“However, while the policy identified hazards and relevant competencies—some of them unique to the screener’s top deck—and did not condone throwing removed items to the ground below, it neither addressed the danger of falling from height nor provided detailed information as to how to remove/change panels, where workers should position themselves and when to use cranes,” the watchdog said in its statement.
“Following the incident, Kimberley Quarry made improvements to its safe work procedure for the changing of the screens, including adding references to the appropriate certifications/licences to the list of competencies, expressly forbidding climbing onto the screener’s deck and explicitly prohibiting throwing panels off the machine.”
The company has updated its safe work procedure for working at heights with related employees to have permits before using an elevated work platform.
WorkSafe Commissioner Sally North said the incident highlighted the importance of developing thorough procedures in consultation with workers, and understanding the legal requirements to preserve the site of a notifiable incident.
“Incomplete safe work procedures, such as those that don’t address the life-threatening risks associated with working at heights, are inadequate,” she said.
An Australian Securities and Investments Commission document shows Kimberley Quarry's registered address in Leederville and its principal place of business in Bibra Lake.
