Company charged over elevated work platform death

WorkSafe has charged an equipment hire company with three breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 following the death of a contractor who was thrown from an elevated work platform (EWP).

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United Access Pty Ltd has been charged with:

  • Failing to provide or maintain a system of work that was safe and without risks to health (section 21 OHS Act  2004).
  • Failing to ensure that people other than employees were not exposed to risks to their health and safety (section 23 OHS Act 2004).
  • Failing to ensure that a workplace under their management and control, and the means of entering and leaving it, were safe and without risks to health (section 26 OHS Act 2004).

The charges follow an investigation into an incident on August 11 last year, where a 39-year-old man was thrown from the bucket of an EWP at Braeside.

It is alleged he was loading the platform onto a truck when it was hit by a passing car.

He later died in hospital.

The charges were filed in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court.