Workers in Calgary advocate for safety reform after man dies in trench collapse | 24CA News
Workers in Calgary are advocating for office security reforms after a person died in a trench collapse on Thursday.
Carol Henke, hearth division spokesperson, confirmed to Global News that emergency crews have been referred to as to the 2600 block of thirty fourth Avenue N.W., in the neighborhood of Charleswood, at round 10:45 a.m. Thursday for reviews a trench had collapsed.
The battalion chief mentioned that there was no trench field in place initially, so crews needed to place one earlier than they might safely enter the ditch.
Liam Johnston, 27, was pronounced lifeless on the scene. Johnston was working for Mr. Mike’s Plumbing on the time of the incident.
Jon Malley, a former apprentice plumber with Mr. Mike’s, instructed Global News he requested a trench field from administration final March.
“I had a meeting with the management and I told them it’s a matter of time before somebody gets killed,” Malley mentioned.
“I knew Liam. We became apprentices together. He was a stand-up guy. ”
In an earlier assertion, the corporate mentioned security is its prime precedence and mentioned it’s working with authorities to know the circumstances of the incident to make sure the suitable measures are taken to forestall any future incidents.
Pete Archdekin, proprietor of Pete The Plumber, mentioned the incident was tragic and will have by no means occurred.
He instructed Global News the federal government of Alberta’s occupational well being and security handbook protects folks working in holes and tunnels.
Workers additionally should take licensed programs on methods to safely work in tight areas, he mentioned.
“If that was followed, anybody can go down the hole. You can go down the hole if it’s properly shored, if the proper excavations done, if proper safety things were followed,” Archdekin mentioned.
Archedekin added these incidents are very uncommon, and deaths normally occur if there was a fuel valve downside or if there have been excessive carbon monoxide ranges.
“That young man should have been in that hole to do his job. You got to get to the pipe. The pipe is where it is right here. There’s no magic way to get down there,” he mentioned.
“You hear very few excavation problems on residential projects. Very, very few.”
Rob Stewart, a security scientist, mentioned folks have identified to forestall tragic incidents like trench collapses for many years.
It is bodily unimaginable for the ditch to break down onto someone if the right security procedures and laws have been adopted, Stewart mentioned.
“The unfortunate thing is we have all these really good regulations and a lot of them aren’t followed. I think in Alberta, 50 per cent of employers aren’t following basic safety regulations and it usually goes well until it doesn’t,” Stewart instructed Global News.
“We don’t have very much of a deterrent effect to prevent it from happening again in the future.”
Stewart mentioned lots of people are afraid to talk up about unsafe working situations as a result of they may lose their jobs. The Alberta authorities must be stricter with the enforcement of fines and punishments for unsafe working situations so it would deter firms from doing so.
“You can have the best laws out there, but if there’s no enforcement there is no reasonable likelihood of being caught if the fines aren’t sufficient to change behaviours,” he mentioned.
But this downside isn’t an Alberta downside. Stewart mentioned lots of people are killed in trenches yearly throughout North America.
“There has to be a behaviour change overall. It has to come from the employers themselves. You can’t expect workers to institute their right to refuse work. That’s not the way that happens,” he mentioned.
“We know from basic human psychology that they will basically go along with the crowd, or if their boss says to do something they will follow through on it because they want to keep their job.
“We need the same sort of consequences, life-altering consequences generally through the Criminal Code that we put on to workers. In this case, we need to put people in jail.”
— with information from Ryan White, Global News.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
