Mainmark: Springvale ground engineering company fined for Mount Waverley incident

A Springvale-based engineering company has learnt its fate in court after two of its workers were splashed with a harmful liquid during a worksite incident.

Mainmark Ground Engineering has been fined after it failed to provide instructions on depressurising pump lines before a 2019 worksite incident in Mount Waverley. File picture.

A global engineering company has been fined after two of its workers were splashed with a harmful liquid and hospitalised following a worksite incident in Melbourne’s east.

Mainmark Ground Engineering was prosecuted by the Victorian WorkCover Authority and pleaded guilty to failing to provide an adequate system to ensure a safe working environment in the Ringwood Magistrates’ Court on July 28.

The incident occurred at a worksite on Munro Ave in Mt Waverley on October 26, 2019, when two workers were doing levelling work at a property, drilling holes and filling them with resin liquid from a pipe system connected to injection guns.

The court heard one of the workers had noticed one of the guns had malfunctioned, and removed the safety cap, and ordered his co-worker to stand back.

It led to resin liquid exploding out of the pipes onto the two workers and in the surrounding area.

The two workers were taken to the Royal Victorian Ear and Eye Hospital for treatment, as the liquid was deemed harmful.

One of the workers was required to have resin removed from underneath his eyelids.

WorkCover found that instructions to depressurise the hoses in the event of a malfunction were not detailed in any documents at the time, nor had Mainmark provided the advice to staff despite prior training.

“It would have been practicable for them to remove the risk by having documented procedure that lines be depressurised before the safety caps were removed,” its representative said.

Mainmark’s defence lawyer Krystyna Grinberg said the company did not have a “a complete absence of a document in terms of cleaning of an injection gun”, but conceded it did not detail the importance of depressurising hoses.

She asked Magistrate Michael Wighton not to record a conviction against the company as it would affect its opportunities to work with government clients.

Mr Wighton told the courtroom, which included Mainmark executives sitting in the gallery, that the company had “a good standing in the community” with no prior convictions or related incidents.

But Mr Wighton said the company had still failed to detail all safe operating procedures, and was “clearly” in breach of its obligation to do so.

“There is a spectrum of offending and I don’t regard this matter as a serious example, even though there are aggravating factors,” he said.

“As I said during submissions … despite training and documents, every effort cannot prevent failure.”

Mr Wighton said he would have fined Mainmark $40,000 if it wasn’t for its early guilty plea.

He spared the company a conviction, and fined Mainmark $8000 for its offence, along with $5039 in costs.