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A worker was rolling a 454-kilogram tire out of a transport-truck trailer when the tire tipped over and crushed him, a Moncton court heard Tuesday.

Coast Tire & Auto Service Ltd. is on trial on a charge under New Brunswick’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. It’s alleged the company failed to provide appropriate equipment to move oversize tires. 

Coast Tire employee Timothy Steeves, 41, died Oct. 18, 2024.

Armour Transportation truck driver Michel Bourque testified he delivered a shipment of tires to Coast Tire the day Steeves died.

Bourque said he backed the transport truck up to a loading bay at Coast Tire’s Baig Boulevard location in Moncton. 

He said Steeves had unloaded a smaller tire on a pallet using a forklift. A larger tire was strapped upright against the interior wall of the trailer. 

“That was probably the biggest one that I delivered to Coast Tire,” Bourque said.

Bourque said Steeves told him he wouldn’t use a forklift to move it and instead would roll it out of the trailer. The tire started to roll but hit a ramp between the back of the trailer and the loading dock and tipped over on Steeves.

Bourque, who knew Steeves from previous deliveries, said he tried to lift the tire, but it was too heavy. He yelled for others to help. 

Surveillance video of the loading bay played in court showed the tire appearing through an open trailer door and then tipping over. Other workers are shown rushing to the area. 

“They’re the ones that all tried to save Tim,” Bourque testified.

7 witnesses called

He was the first of seven Crown witnesses called to testify Tuesday.

Derrick Fillmore, who was assistant manager at the time, testified Coast Tire wanted oversize tires tires shipped on pallets so forklifts could move them. How they arrived depended on other companies, however. 

“That’s the way the manufacturer shipped it,” Fillmore said about the tire that crushed Steeves.

Fillmore testified the Goodyear tire was for “earth-mover equipment.” 

Fillmore said he used volunteer firefighter experience to assess Steeves and perform CPR before Moncton firefighters and paramedics arrived.

Fillmore was one of two employees who said the upright position of the tire made rolling the tire the best way to move the tire since forklifts couldn’t turn sideways in the trailer. 

“There was really no way to get a forklift in the trailer,” Fillmore said. 

Francis Hibbs, another Coast Tire employee, also said the tire’s position made using a forklift a problem. Hibbs testified under cross-examination that another forklift with a “bale clamp” could be used to pick up tires from the side. 

James LeMesurier, the lawyer representing Coast Tire in the trial, asked a number of witnesses whether it was Steeves’s decision to unload the tire by rolling it. 

No written policy before death

Shirley Mitchell, the company’s human resources director, testified Coast Tire had no written policy about unloading large tires at the time. One was drafted the day Steeves died.

“We put together what the normal process is but have since created a much more detailed procedure,” Mitchell said.

That new policy calls for four employees to roll a tire, three touching it with the fourth guiding them.

Judge Jeff Lantz, who normally sits in Prince Edward Island, is presiding over the trial.

Lantz denied Crown prosecutor Gabin Kabou’s request late Tuesday to qualify a WorkSafeNB employee as an expert witness on ergonomics. Kabou then said the Crown had no other witnesses. 

LeMesurier, the lawyer for Coast Tire, said he’s still considering whether to present evidence.

The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday.