Last year, three Digsafe workers were installing new hydro poles and wires under existing energized power lines, when their truck boom came near the overhead wires while they were digging holes for the new poles. All three workers received shocks, but Barry Robertson, 31, died later in the hospital.
Digsafe, an Ottawa (Ontario, Canada) excavation service company, now has been held legally accountable for the death and the injury of the two others, according to The Ottawa Citizen.
Digsafe Inc. pleaded guilty to failing as an employer to make sure that the truck boom didn’t come within three metres of the energized power line as required under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Besides the $125,000 penalty, Balkwill imposed a 25-per-cent victim surcharge as stipulated by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge goes into a special provincial fund to assist crime victims...(The Ottawa Citizen)
