Door crashed down on worker, causing fatal blunt impact injury
Toronto-based Events at One King West and Toronto Standards Condominium Corporation 1703 have been fined $100,000 each for the death of a worker who was killed by a falling freight elevator door. The court also imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act.
"A clear message was sent today to both the Toronto Standard Condominium Corporation 1703 and to Events at One King West," said Roger Neate, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority’s director of elevating and amusement devices. "Owners will be held accountable when they allow an elevator to be operated without ensuring the necessary repairs are made or that the necessary maintenance is performed."
On Nov. 15, 2016, a worker employed by Events was assisting in the delivery and set-up of holiday decorations. The decorations were loaded on a freight elevator. The holiday decorations were unloaded on the second floor and another worker, employed by a film production company to operate the elevator, took it to the third floor.
The elevator stopped short of the third floor, trapping the film production company's worker, who was able to open the front car door and be pulled out of the elevator.
Upon re-entering the elevator, that worker noticed that a black stage cord that had been attached to the front car door was out of sight and reach because the front car door was in the up position and the cord could no longer be reached to close the door.
When the elevator ascended from the second to the third floor, the black stage cord that was being used as a replacement pull strap on the car gate door got caught on the upper portion of the second floor landing door, and began to pull the upper portion of the landing door up with the elevator car.
At the same time, the worker employed by Events returned to the elevator to see if anything still needed to be unloaded, and appeared to have observed that the top panel of the landing door had opened.
The Events worker looked into the hoistway opening created by the landing door being pulled apart.
The black stage cord then snapped and the upper portion of the landing door crashed down onto the worker, causing a fatal blunt impact injury.
The black stage cord was a replacement for the original strap usually used to close the car gate door. It had been broken about two-and-a-half weeks before the incident and was initially replaced by a lanyard on that date.
On Oct. 31, 2016, the usual elevator operator (who was employed by Events) noticed the lanyard and replaced it with a cream coloured telephone wire, and also notified the maintenance manager of Events of that temporary repair.
Sometime shortly before the incident, the telephone wire was replaced with the black stage cord. It is not clear who replaced the telephone wire with the black stage cord but it appears the telephone wire was still in place up until the day before the incident.
Investigations were conducted by the Ministry of Labour, which has responsibility for the enforcement of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, which has responsibility for the enforcement of the Elevating Devices Regulation (Ontario Regulation 209/01).
Events failed to ensure that the freight elevator was maintained in good condition, contrary to section 25(1)(b) of the OHSA. TSSC 1703 failed to comply with section 9(1) of Regulation 209/01 by permitting the elevator to be operated without ensuring the necessary repairs were made, rendering it unsafe.
Source: Ontario Ministry of Labour with quote provided by the Technical Standards and Safety Authority
