October 10, 2008

Rockway Building Supplies pleads guilty in electrical-shock incident

A Kitchener building supply company was fined $45,000 after pleading guilty in connection with an incident in which a worker received an 8,000-volt electrical shock.

On Aug. 27, 2007, two employees of Rockway Building Supplies were delivering bundles of roof shingles to a residential roofing project at 69 Balmoral Dr., Guelph.

At one point, a worker standing on the ground beside the flatbed truck used to haul the shingles touched the truck, received an electrical shock and was thrown onto the ground almost a metre away. Looking up, the worker saw a conveyor used to move the shingles off the truck had made contact with an overhead electrical wire.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act’s Regulation for Construction Projects, section 188 (2), states that no object shall be brought closer than three metres to an energized overhead electrical conductor with a voltage rating between 750 and 150,000. Guelph Hydro estimated the line that the conveyor touched was rated at 8,000 volts.

0865356 Ontario Inc., operating as Rockway Building Supplies, pleaded guilty to failing, as an employer, to ensure that the measures and procedures in the Regulation were carried out.

DCN News Services

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