Denis James MURPHY

Incident description:

On 26 October 2007 a worker sustained serious injuries on his first day of employment with the defendant when he was provided with a four wheel drive tractor to operate and tow a banana trailer down a slope. Whilst towing the trailer, the worker experienced difficulties, took evasive action and jumped from the moving tractor before it came to rest in the banana plantation. He sustained fractures to the left femur and right clavicle as a result of the incident.

The workplace health and safety investigation revealed that:

• the tractor was in a serviceable condition
• there was no system to adequately assess competency of operators.

Court result:

The Court took into account the defendant had no previous convictions for breaches of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995, entered an early plea, cooperated with the investigation and had good character. No conviction was recorded.

Considerations for prevention:

When working in the rural industry where there is exposure to risk while operating mobile plant, obligation holders should apply a risk management approach to ensure selection of suitable control measures.

Risk management involves identifying hazards, evaluating consequences and likelihood of harm resulting from a hazard, deciding on and implementing control measures to prevent or minimise the level of the risk from the hazard and monitoring the effectiveness of controls to ensure they are working correctly.

When deciding on and implementing appropriate control measures associated with mobile plant operation, obligation holders should:

• ensure that such tasks are undertaken by suitably qualified and experienced workers
• consider conducting induction and ongoing training that provides relevant safety information and precautions
• encourage workers to identify any hazards that may become prevalent in their workplace and report the findings immediately to their supervisors
• ensure all training records and copies of licenses to operate plant are retained for future reference.

Visit the Workplace Health and Safety Queensland website for more information on:

• Health and safety information for the rural industry
• Rural fact sheets
• Tractor safety
• Rollover protective structures (ROPS)
• Managing the safety of labour hire workers
• Training staff
• Rural Plant Code of Practice 2004
• Plant Code of Practice 2005
• Risk Management Code of Practice 2007
• Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995.