Virginia’s Zerella Fresh fined $210,000 after worker was dragged into vegetable processing machinery by his clothes

A Virginia vegetable processing company has been fined more than $200,000 after a worker was seriously injured when his clothes became caught in machinery.

Zerella Fresh at Virginia on the day of the incident in 2017. Photo Calum Robertson

A Virginia vegetable processor has been fined more than $200,000 after a worker got his clothing caught in machinery and was dragged into the gears at the bottom of a five metre pit.

The 33-year-old worker was left with permanent and life changing injuries after the accident at Zerella Fresh.

It was not the companies first time before the South Australian Employment Tribunal after a worker was injured by loose pallets in January 2006 and another had the skin torn off a finger while trying to clear a blocked in a plastic bagging machine only years later.

In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, Tribunal deputy president Magistrate Stuart Cole said the accident which seriously injured the worker was “almost inevitable”.

The worker was a qualified automotive mechanic employed as a maintenance technician.

Zerella produces and processes onions, carrots and potatoes and operates, among other processes, a large potato wash line.

The factory on the day the worker was injured, in 2017. Photo Calum Robertson

Mud and dirty water from the wash line flow into a five metre deep pit.

The top of the pit was open at ground level and surrounded by fencing with access to the pit by ladder.

At the bottom of the pit an “agitator”, a device of spinning blades, had been installed to keep the mud and dirt moving and to prevent it from settling.

The agitator was driven by a rotating shaft which descended from ground level to the bottom of the pit.

The final element of the set up was a pump to draw the water out which was suspended in the pit by a chain which could be raised and lowered.

The pump routinely became blocked and would need to be cleared by hand.

On October 12, 2017, the worker was raising the pump and leaning across the pit to manipulate the chain.

His clothing became caught in the rotating shaft and he was pulled into the pit as his clothes were ripped off him.

He managed to get to the ladder in the pit and climb out.

The worker suffered a broken ankle, leg, arm and wrist as well as a spine fracture, ear lacerations and friction burns to his face and neck.

A Zerella Fresh potato farm.

He underwent multiple surgeries and spent six weeks in hospital.

The worker also reported a brain injury which had effected his memory.

Mark Pye, one of Zerella’s directors, visited the worker in hospital and later sent a written apology along with a lump-sum payment of $20,000 in addition to whatever entitlements he would receive.

The Tribunal heard that at some point prior to the accident a guard had been installed around the shaft but it had been removed and not reattached.

Zerella pleaded guilty to breaches of the Work Health and Safety Act and implemented “extensive safety measures and improved staffing”.

But Mr Cole was not convinced that after three serious accidents in 15 years the company had learnt its lesson, despite changes in its management.

“This case is a reminder that if shortcuts are available and allowed in the workplace, then commonly these shortcuts will be taken,” he said.

“The two previous convictions of the defendant cannot, in my view, be sidelined.

“In each case the defendant was sentenced on the basis that is had learnt its lesson about safety, and that it was conscious about its safety responsibilities.

“This incident indicates that the lesson had not been sufficiently learnt.”

The company was fined $210,000 in addition to court fees and legal costs of $2100.