A Youngtown man killed in a horrific waste compactor accident nearly a decade ago was not given safety guidelines or instructions on critical safety aspects of his job, a coroner has found.
Daniel Thomas Knight died in November 2014 after he entered a waste paper compacting unit at Woolston Printing in Western Junction to clear out paper offcuts that had jammed up the unit’s crushing mechanism.
While he was inside the unit, Mr Knight inadvertently bumped a side ram, causing it to begin its action, lifting Mr Knight upwards and trapping him in the mechanism, where he sustained fatal crush injuries.
In a report released on Friday, coroner Robert Webster wrote that there was no evidence that Mr Knight was aware of safety guidelines mandating that the machine be disconnected from power and air before it was serviced.
He wrote that although Woolston Press managing director James Woolston and print production manager Joshua Green received instructions on safety features of the compactor, Mr Knight was not.
“There is no evidence Mr Knight was aware of the guidelines or that Mr Knight was ever provided with any form of instruction or training with respect to the isolation of machinery from all energy sources prior to servicing or performing maintenance or repairs,” Mr Webster wrote.
The coroner also noted that an electronic panel that might have alerted Mr Knight to the fact that the compactor unit was on and operational was covered by a vinyl strip.
“This vinyl strip may have prevented Mr Knight from seeing the electricity to the CU was turned on.”
The air and power supply were switched off and Mr Knight was directed not to touch the compactor unit, but on November 12 2014 both air supply and the power were switched backed on.
It was unclear whether Mr Knight was aware that the machine had been reconnected to power, since he had been absent from work on holiday for some time.
“The book binding line had not operated while Mr Green was on leave, but it operated on 10, 11 and 12 November 2014.
“This produced paper trim which was extracted from the book binding line by the extraction system and into the compactor unit.But WorkSafe dropped the charge last year, with prosecutors telling the Magistrates Court that there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction.
“The compactor unit became blocked at which time Mr Knight entered [it] to unblock it.”
Coroner Webster noted that his inquest had been delayed for years, after WorkSafe Tasmania and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions charged Woolston Press with breaching workplace safety laws over the incident.
But WorkSafe dropped the charge last year, with prosecutors telling the Magistrates Court that there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction.
Source: The Examiner
