A 74-year-old Stettler-area man died Wednesday night after being crushed by a falling wall in a woodwork shop.
A spokesman for Albert Occupational Health and Safety said that at about 2:45 p.m. on Wednesday, workers were moving some materials in the shop at Red Willow and a shed end wall got knocked over, striking the unnamed employee.
“They were going about their normal work at the time,” said Sgt. Rowland Schmidt of Stettler RCMP, one of the officers who responded to the call for help. “(Other employees) were trained, so assistance was given right on site . . . they administered CPR.”
The first aid, however, wasn’t enough to save the man. After being treated by paramedics and airlifted to hospital in Edmonton by STARS with critical injuries, the man was declared dead at 11 p.m. His name is not being released at the request of family.
Alberta Occupational Health and Safety officials and the office of the medical examiner are investigating. The RCMP are not conducting a criminal investigation. Red Willow is located 25 km northeast of Stettler.
“It’s a concern for any worksite, how you store materials,” said Chris Chodan of Employment and Immigration public affairs. “I can’t comment on this because it’s still under investigation, but the lessons we’ve learned from enough investigations is that no incident is unavoidable.”
Chodan said they have investigated very few incidents where workplace injuries were unforeseeable.
“The lesson for most people is to do a hazard assessment, which an employer is required to do under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and communicate to workers what could be a hazard and work to mitigate or eliminate that.”
OHS investigators have up to two years from the time of an incident to recommend charges to be laid, although Chodan said it usually doesn’t take that long.
Chodan said that in cases where employees have been injured on the job, convictions could lead to a fine of up to $500,000 and/or six months in jail. But he noted that no one had ever been jailed in Alberta as a result of OHS violations.
mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com