University of Manitoba (UMANITOBA.CA)
WINNIPEG — The University of Manitoba has been fined $13,000 for an employee’s injuries sustained by falling nearly 15 feet into an open pit.
The accident happened August 19, 2014 when a worker in the U of M’s Fort Garry campus Power House Building stepped into a hole in the floor. Workplace Safety and Health says two floor panels were removed to lower a 2,200-pound spool of wire to the building’s basement. When workers temporarily left to retrieve the spool to be lowered, they left the floor open, where another U of M worker fell 14.5 feet and was seriously injured.
The U of M pleaded guilty on April 20, 2017 to the charge of failing to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the safety, health and welfare of its workers when they failed to ensure that a guardrail system was in place to protect workers from falling through a floor opening.
