Leader Staff
For South Peace News
A Slave Lake trucking company was fined $270,000 in Slave Lake Court of Justice July 12 after pleading guilty to an Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) violation involving the death of a High Prairie man.
Spilak Tank Truck Services pleaded guilty to OHS’s Safety Code 12 (b). Specifically in regard to making sure a shaft extension coupler was maintained in such a way that it didn’t have any catch hazards.
On January 11, 2022, Scott L’Hirondelle, 37, of High Prairie, died in a workplace accident. He left behind a wife and five children. His wife and the two OHS investigators were in the courtroom for the guilty plea and sentencing. One of the Spilak owners and the OHS manager were also in the courtroom.
“We feel Scott’s loss deeply,” said a Spilak representative in court.
“We want to extend our deepest apologies.”
It was only the second court appearance on the matter, despite the accident occurring over a year ago.
This was “an extremely difficult case” to investigate, the prosecutor told court.
L’Hirondelle had been a truck driver for 11 years and had worked for Spilak since November 2020.
On Jan. 11, L’Hirondelle drove from High Prairie to Slave Lake to start his shift at 3:45 a.m., court heard. He drove a tanker truck and picked up liquid waste from oilfield sites and took it to the Mitsue industrial area. He made several trips. Around 4 p.m., he started to unload at the Mitsue site. For some reason, he removed the safety guard before starting to grease the shaft, which was rotating. The glove on his left hand caught on a bolt. He was sucked in and strangled to death. His body was discovered by another worker at 5:35 p.m. They did CPR and called an ambulance but he was dead.
The investigation found that the bolt was a catch hazard and training on greasing was inconsistent. L’Hirondelle had been trained not to remove the safety guard.
The investigation didn’t find out why the safety guard was removed; however, investigators discovered it was too short to cover the longer bolt.
The company uses two types of pumps. In 2019, this one involved in the accident was changed from one to the other. The new one has a longer shaft, so the guard didn’t cover the bolt. It was a new bolt, court heard, slightly longer than the one it had replaced.
The training included information on greasing the shafts, but was not clear that the two different shafts are greased differently. This one was not supposed to be greased while running. The other one was supposed to be greased while running.
“They intended to comply,” the Crown said about Spilak’s. The company has an OHS manager and had received a certificate of recommendation.
“There were no prior near misses with this unit,” said the defence lawyer.
Spilak is a family-owned trucking business in Slave Lake. It was started in 1972. In 2023, it had 80 employees and 40 trucks.
After the incident, the company reached out to L’Hirondelle’s widow to offer support, court heard. Fellow employees also raised some money. The company is also working hard to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
Spilak’s defence lawyer said the company has talked about the accident at two industry events. Shortly after the accident, it sent out an energy safety bulletin so other companies would learn about the danger.
The accident happened at the Secure Energy site in Mitsue Industrial Park. The company has since done inspections to make sure the safety guards are not removed. They identified two close calls. They shut down work and explained the danger.
The defence lawyer added that Spilak’s implemented all changes made by OHS including extending guards, checking bolts, and making sure that the training is clear.
In his remarks, Justice C.K. Thietke said mitigating factors in the case are the remorse of the company, the early guilty plea and “a moderate level of negligence.”
“This was a failure and the company accepts this was a failure … good faith efforts were made by the company,” said Justice Thietke.
Spilak was fined $270,000, to be paid in installments.
The maximum fine in the statute is $500,000. Generally, companies are fined between $275,000 and $350,000, the prosecutor told court.
The Crown withdrew a second alleged OHS violation.