Constructor, employer, supervisor and director fined $380,000 in total after workers fall down elevator shaft
Two companies and two individuals have been fined a total of $380,000 for their role in a 2021 elevator-shaft platform collapse that led to critical injuries to two workers.
Kingston-based Homestead Land Holdings Limited was fined $150,000, Hannon-based Reimar Construction Corporation was fined $200,000, Reimar supervisor Jose Martinho was fined $15,000, and Reimar director Miguel Martins was also fined $15,000.
All entered guilty pleas in Provincial Offences Court, and will pay a further 25 percent surcharge that is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The incident in question occurred on April 16, 2021 at a high-rise residential construction site on Towering Heights Boulevard in St. Catharines.
Homestead Land Holdings Limited was the constructor of the building and had contracted Reimar Construction Corporation to perform concrete formwork.
Martinho had assigned two workers to move and install formwork for the inner walls of the building’s elevator shaft from the eighth to the ninth storey.
He, the workers and a crane operator began to install and level an elevator shaft platform for the inner wall elevator formwork and for the workers to stand on while installing the formwork. The platform was supported by beams that rested in pockets formed into the concrete elevator walls. The workers had trouble aligning all the beams into their respective pockets.
Martinho installed an additional bracket under one end of one of the support beams since the workers were having trouble with the adjusting screw and there was concern over the amount of bearing in that pocket.
No engineering approval was obtained for the installation of the bracket, and the heads of the anchors that attached the bracket to the concrete, which did not fail, were too small for the opening in the bracket.
Once the platform was installed and levelled, a section of formwork weighing approximately 5,430 kilograms was placed on it, and the two workers entered onto the platform.
As the workers were working, the platform collapsed at one end, causing the workers to fall and become critically injured.
The Occupational Health and Safety Act requires that the formwork and falsework used in this incident, including the elevator shaft platform, be designed by an engineer in accordance with good engineering practice and be installed or erected in accordance with the design drawings. Reimar did not obtain and provide such drawings.