Tree lopping company fined $15k after worker loses leg

A TREE lopping company has pleaded guilty to failing to provide a safe workplace after a worker lost his leg in a freak accident last year

A TREE lopping company has pleaded guilty to failing to provide a safe workplace after a worker lost his leg in a freak accident last year.

Ben’s Tree Services Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to the single charge in Darwin Local Court yesterday, with a maximum fine of $1.5 million.

Prosecutor Helena Blundell said two tree loppers — including the company’s sole director Ben Atkinson — were working at Wildman Wilderness Lodge in Kakadu on March 24 last year when the accident happened.

After lunch, two labourers from the lodge — including the victim, Phillip Ferguson — were sent to help the tree loppers.

Ms Blundell said an object, believed to be a piece of rope, got sucked into the woodchipper, and wrapped around Mr Ferguson’s left leg, resulting in a “traumatic amputation”.

The company agreed it did not comply with the Work Health Safety Act, failed to put up a barrier or markers around the work area and failed to brief the two helpers on how to work safely near the woodchipper.

Jon Tippett, for the company, said the accident could not have been predicted.

“Really no one could have envisaged this, the injured party was some 10 to 20m away from the chipper at the time, no one can explain how this occurred,” he said.

He said the company had since spent $10,000 undertaking a “comprehensive overhaul” of their approach to work health safety and had co-operated with Worksafe NT.

The court heard accidents involving a worker’s death have typically attracted a $100,000 fine.

Mr Tippett said the company had become less profitable since the accident and Mr Atkinson was not in a position to pay a large fine.

But Judge Greg Cavanagh said it was important to send a message to employers.

“I should not be seen as putting a cost on a leg, it’s impossible to quantify,” he said.

“But I do have to send out a message which goes out (to companies that) engage in rather dangerous activities such as tree lopping. They have to have regard to safety in a real and manifest sense.”

He convicted the company and fined it $15,000.