Worker died of oxygen deprivation
Algoma Steel pleaded guilty Tuesday to a single charge under Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act connected to the 2023 death of a 21-year-old contractor, according to a report.
The Sault Ste. Marie steelmaker agreed to a $250,000 fine, including the victim fine surcharge. Two additional charges laid against the company were withdrawn as part of the plea, reported CTV News.
The charge stemmed from a missing safeguard: warning signage at a confined space. "Algoma admits that warning signs regarding unauthorized entry were not present," the agreed statement of facts cited in the report.
Details of the incident
Damien Bryant of Sudbury, Ont., died June 15, 2023, while working for contractor GFL Environmental on a gas-line cleaning job at Algoma's Sault Ste. Marie site. On the day of the incident, he lost consciousness while cleaning an out-of-service gas line. He later died in hospital.
Bryant was feeding a camera into a 36-inch pipe so coworker Justin Warne could photograph its interior. Warne noticed the camera had stopped moving and went to check on Bryant, according to the report.
Bryant had crawled into the pipe and died of oxygen deprivation, CTV News reported. The line had been purged with nitrogen ahead of cleaning, removing all oxygen and making entry unsafe without protocols that were not followed.
No operational reason for entry
The agreed statement of facts said entry into the pipe was never required to complete the cleaning work. "There is no question that entering the pipe is not required to perform the procedures for cleaning the pipe," the statement said, according to the report.
Warne later told Sault Ste. Marie police he knew workers were not permitted inside the pipe and "could not understand why Bryant did what he did," CTV News reported.
Both workers were described in the statement of facts as experienced and "well-regarded" employees who had done similar jobs at Algoma previously.
Algoma has said it remains committed to learning from the incident and applying lessons across its operations, though it acknowledged the legal proceeding's conclusion cannot change the loss suffered by Bryant's family.
