A Toronto construction company has been fined $150,000 for a safety violation in connection with a fatal accident at a Hamilton high rise in 2018. Welldone Inc., of, Toronto company that specializes in restoration work, pled guilty to failure to provide fall protection after a worker fell from the roof of a 13-storey residential building located at 57 Forest Avenue in Hamilton. The worker was not protected by a guardrail or travel restraint system as required by law. The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.
The construction project consisted of the restoration of balconies on a 13-storey residential building. The restoration work was performed from a suspended swing stage.
Two workers were on the rooftop at the time of the incident. They were not wearing any fall protection equipment and were not otherwise protected from the hazard of falling off the edge of the building.
The workers were marking measurements to indicate the new location for a beam to support the suspended swing stage. One worker was on hands and knees and held and watched the live end of the measuring tape. The other worker took the zero end of the measuring tape and walked away towards the end of the wing to mark the location of the beam.
The worker on hands and knees saw the measuring device continue beyond the expected distance and yelled for the co-worker to stop. At that point,the co-worker screamed while falling off the edge of the building. The co-worker was pronounced dead at the project by a regional coroner.
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