RED ROCK, Ont. — A contractor has been fined $65,000 for a workplace accident at the former kraft paper mill in Red Rock two years ago.
SL Marketing of Orillia was conducting a demolition operation on the property owned by Riversedge Developments in November 2017.
According to the Ministry of Labour, an excavator operator was trapped in his cab for several hours when a 65-foot concrete wall collapsed on top of the machine, leaving it buried under rubble.
The man was eventually freed, and taken to hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.
The labour ministry said that even though the company had trained its workers in demolition, it had failed to ensure a second assessment was done at the job site after explosives initially failed to bring a building down.
Instead, the site was left to settle for several days, after which the excavator operator was instructed to "soften" one of the structure's walls using an attached pulverizer.
The intention was that after the walls were softened, more explosives would be set off.
SL Marketing pleaded guilty in Provincial Offences Court in Thunder Bay for not ensuring prescribed measures were carried out in a workplace to prevent injury to a worker.
