Shane Gorner, a Salmon Arm Secondary grad, was killed this week in a workplace accident.
(Note, this image has been cropped)
Image Credit: Facebook
January 18, 2016 - 8:00 PM
VERNON - A Salmon Arm company has been fined for repeated, high-risk safety violations in relation to an incident that left a young worker dead two years ago.
Shane Gorner, 19, was killed Aug. 28, 2013 after getting caught in some machinery at the Dinoflex Manufacturing plant, which makes rubber flooring and roofing materials.
WorkSafe B.C. investigated the incident, and has now handed Dinoflex Group Limited Partnership a $36,543 penalty.
WorkSafe said the young worker was leaning between the plates of a rubber-block press to reposition excess rubber in the mould when ‘the plates closed unexpectedly.’
“WorkSafeBC officers had discussed safeguarding requirements with the firm before this incident. But WorkSafeBC’s investigation found that the press lacked adequate safeguarding and had substandard controls, and that the firm had instructed workers to use a work procedure that required them to enter the pinch point of the press,” WorkSafe states.
It said the ‘repeated and high-risk violations’ show the firm failed to ensure the health and safety of its workers.
Dinoflex CEO Mark Bunz declined to comment.
Gorner's family created a sholarship fund with the Shuswap Community Foundation in his memory. It's to be given to a Salmon Arm Senior Secondary grad who 'exhibits Shane’s qualities of optimism, maturity and dedication to his artistic pursuits.' For more information, or to donate to the fund, click here.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infonews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2016