Company Fined After Worker Fell into River From a Lorry Parked Too Near to the Edge

The fatal incident that led to the demise of a lorry driver who was working on a barge, occurred back in 21 June 2019.

New West Coast Maritime, the company that owns the barge, has since been fined a sum of $165,000 for failing to adhere to workplace safety protocols, leading to the incident.

Here’s what happened.

How The Fall Happened

The barge was docked at a pier along Pandan Road, where its main purpose was to transport construction tools and materials to Pulau Sebarok from the south of Singapore.

The late driver, named Zhang Wei, was driving a lorry containing bottled water onto the barge for it to be sent to the outer islands.

At about 9am on the day of the incident, he got out of his lorry to manoeuvre the wheel chocks. As he was later instructed to give way to another vehicle, he backed up the lorry and parked near the edge of the barge.

When he got out of the lorry and attempted to close the door, he fell over the railings of the boat and into the waters below.

Nearby crew members immediately threw the life jackets to the drive and some even jumped into the water to find him, but he quickly sank into the water and disappeared.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force was contacted and divers arrived at the scene to conduct a search and rescue operation. They eventually recovered Zhang’s body at around 11.40am in the morning.

Railing Height Did Not Meet Safety Guidelines; Workers Did Not Wear Life Jackets

According to initial investigations, the railing at the edge of the barge where the driver fell over was only 35cm high, and the floor demarcation was not at a safe enough distance from the water for parking.

In addition, the deceased was originally supposed to report to the security office and put on a life jacket before driving the vehicle into the barge, but the company did not enforce this procedure.

Other workers were also found to not being wearing their life jackets while working onboard, and none of the workers had received the required safety-related training prior to the incident.

The Company Has Been Fined

New West Coast Maritime pleaded guilty to one count of contravening the Workplace Safety and Health Act, for failing to ensure that vehicles parked on the barge were kept a safe distance from the railings of the boat, and for not ensuring that their onboard personnel were wearing life jackets while working.

They have been fined a sum of $165,000 for it.

While the judge pointed out that the company’s negligence had caused serious injury to the workers and death, in the case of the driver, the verdict also took into account the company’s subsequent efforts to improve the safety design of the barge, such as restricting the parking of vehicles to a distance of at least 1.5 meters from the edge of the ship.

To know more about workplace safety, watch this to the end:

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