Silo fall prosecutions hold lessons for farmers

Silo fall prosecutions hold important lessons for farmers

The prosecution of an egg farm and a feed supply company over a worker who was seriously injured after falling from a feed silo, holds important lessons for all farms with feed silos, says the Department of Labour.

On 26 September 2006 Alan Gray was filling Wellington Egg Company’s feed silos on a farm near Pauatahanui, Wellington. Mr Gray had completed filling a silo when he climbed the silo to replace the lid. In doing so, he lost his balance and fell backwards from the top of the silo to the ground five metres below.

Mr Gray suffered a fracture to his spine, severe soft tissue injury of his neck, an adrenal haematoma, and damaged the tendons in his left leg. He was unfit to work for the six months following the incident.

The Department of Labour charged both Mr Gray’s employer, Sharpes Stock Feeds Limited, and Wellington Egg Company, for failing to take all practicable steps to ensure Mr Gray was not harmed while at work.

On Friday 20 July, 2007, Judge Harrop in the Porirua District Court ordered fines and reparation totalling $30,000 related to the case: Sharpes Stock Feeds was ordered to pay $13,000 in reparation to Mr Gray as well as a fine of $6,000; while the Wellington Egg Company was ordered to pay reparation of $8,000 and a fine of $3,000.

The Department of Labour maintained that Sharpes Stock Feeds should have ensured that the silo was safe to climb before requiring their employee to climb it, and that Wellington Egg Company should have ensured that the silo was safe or unnecessary to climb. Safety could have been ensured via a simple rope mechanism to open and close the lid, making it unnecessary to climb the silo at all.

Mike Munnelly, the Department’s Central Regional Manager for Workplace Services, says it is estimated that there are several thousand similar silos in New Zealand and farmers needed to act to make them safe.

“Increasingly, silos can be serviced and maintained from ground level,” says Mr Munnelly. “More than half of the silos that Mr Gray delivered feed to the day of his fall could be opened and closed by a mechanism from the ground

“Indeed, following the incident, Wellington Egg Company modified the silo in question using a simple low cost rope system for opening and closing the lid from the ground – eliminating the potential of a fall from height.”

Mr Munnelly says that where it is not practicable to modify a silo so it can be maintained and operated from ground level, and the silo still needs to be climbed, companies must take all practicable steps to ensure that workers are not harmed. Other practicable steps exist that could have prevented this fall, including the installation of guardrails at the top of the silo so that workers are not in danger of falling off the edge, should they slip. In addition, installing enclosed ladders would minimise the chances of a fall while someone is climbing.

“In this case a worker suffered serious injuries from a fall that could have taken his life,” says Mr Munnelly. “A judge has agreed that there are relatively simple and inexpensive steps that farmers with silos must take to keep people working around them safe.

“Accidents on farms can cost the farm enterprise dearly in the loss of production and the need to find temporary or replacement staff. Farm managers should be aware that good health and safety is not just good for their staff, but good for their business. Farms ‘win’ by acting in a socially responsible way because it is also the economically sensible thing for them to do.

“Farmers need to be actively thinking about how to keep staff safe – it’s about creating a culture of safety. This case highlights to farmers with silos on their farms the need to identify the risk of people falling from those feed stores, and the need to then take the steps necessary to prevent falls from happening.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media