A winery has pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to provide and maintain a safe work place and was fined $60,000 for not guarding their machine.
The court case followed a 2005 incident in which an employee had her right foot dragged into the power take-off (PTO) of a slasher.
The experienced vineyard worker was using a slasher attached to a tractor to cut long grass at Karridale Vineyard. When the worker started removing the grass which had built up on the slasher, the right lower leg of her trousers became tangled in the ungarded PTO of the slasher, dragging her foot into the moving parts.
Five weeks after the incident, WorkSafe inspectors found another similar slasher in use, also without a guard over the PTO.
According to
WorkSafe WA, guarding of machinery was an area of great concern, because the message did not seem to be getting through. In previous incidents involving PTOs, arms and fingers were amputated, and victims sustained serious and permanent limb injuries.
The authority claims the PTO guards are not expensive at around $420 each. Guarding the moving parts of machinery minimises the risk of injury to machinery operators.
