'Lax environment' contributed to 2020 deaths of 2 SaskPower workers

A Saskatchewan judge has found SaskPower guilty of three workplace-safety related violations over an incident that left two workers dead in Weyburn.

On Oct. 8, 2020, two experienced SaskPower employees fell to their deaths when the bucket they were working in tipped.

The pair were working on power lines at the time of the incident.

A recent court decision identifies the deceased as Scott Bill and Cole Crooks.

“Bill and Crooks were both 19 year experienced journeypersons and had been up in a bucket countless times before,” Judge Michelle R. Brass said in her decision. “Neither worker had their safety belt lanyards anchored to the “D” ring located in the bucket specifically for the purpose of fall protection.”

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The deaths of the two men resulted in the Crown’s four counts under provincial Occupational Health and Safety Regulations that SaskPower failed to ensure workplace health and safety, fell short on training and supervision and did not have the proper requirement in place for workers use a personal fall arrest system before being raised in the air.

A fourth count accused SaskPower of failing to ensure the two men were trained properly on the use of the bucket truck, but it was found not to be the case.

SaskPower denied the allegations in court, arguing the crown did not prove the company beyond a reasonable doubt.

Court heard that although the two men were not ‘clipped in’ the day of the incident, other workers of all experience levels who were on site that day testified “they had each forgotten to anchor their lanyards at one time or another.”

“One goes unanchored or unclipped because a worker is going up and down numerous times and will forget to clip in,” the judge said.

Often times, court heard, workers wouldn’t realize they weren’t clipped in until they were back on the ground.

“None of the workers were reprimanded for not clipping in,” the judge said.

The assistant supervisor working with the crew the day of the accident said he did not check in if the two men were clipped in, as he was focused on the live wires they were working with, making sure their machinery wasn’t too close and keeping an eye on the surrounding traffic.

“Bill and Crooks were not clipping in nor being reminded by the Assistant Supervisor or by the other workers in this lax environment,” Brass said. “Thus they were permitted to work from heights without being properly anchored. But for these factors, the extreme dangers of not being clipped in and not being reminded to do so was realized when these workers were ejected from the bucket and fell 15 feet to their deaths.”

The process has since changed, with employees using a “three-way communication system” to ensure everyone is clipped in.

Another change in process is work crews keeping a closer eye on the weight capacity for buckets in use, with weigh scales having since been made available. No weight calculations were done the day of the incident.

Court was also told a contractor’s investigation determining that regular inspection guidelines for the truck’s bucket leveling system were not being followed despite known and lingering issues.

SaskPower did provide information in safety bulletins about previous incidents where buckets dumped workers or workers fell from them, but these workers had been using their safety clips.

After laying out her reasoning, Brass found SaskPower guilty in three of the four counts, as the crown corporation did not establish that it practiced due diligence.

“The Court accepts that Bill and Crooks were well trained, very experienced and knew their jobs well,” Brass said.

“However, the Court does not accept that their qualifications could identify risk associated with the limitations of the surface of the bucket truck in light of the evidence that this particular bucket had a tilting issue. These workers lacked the knowledge to properly calculate whether the work platform of the bucket could safely be used in consideration of this factor. This, however, is not to say the workers were not properly trained to use the bucket truck."

The incident happened at Government Road South and 6 Ave. Southeast in Weyburn.

--With files from Marc Smith