He fell in October 2023 near Whanganui. He was flown to Wellington Hospital and later transferred to Palmerston North Hospital.<\/p>\n
In the Whanganui District Court this month, KiwiRail was fined $220,000 and ordered to pay Dyeming $28,500 reparation.<\/p>\n
\u2018Fundamental failures\u2019<\/p>\n
WorkSafe said the incident was a reminder to all businesses that do work at height to check their safety systems.<\/p>\n
When he fell, Dyeming was installing a new type of Oclyte pole, which was different from the wooden poles previously used.<\/p>\n
WorkSafe said its investigation uncovered \u201cfundamental failures\u201d in how KiwiRail managed the introduction of the new poles.<\/p>\n
KiwiRail didn\u2019t do a detailed, specific risk assessment, no dedicated procedures were developed and workers lacked training in \u201crisk assessment for complex work at height\u201d.<\/p>\n
A fall arrest system was installed but not in use at the time, climbing pegs in the pole were not installed correctly and KiwiRail didn\u2019t provide safer methods for the job, such as a mobile, elevated work platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you introduce new infrastructure, you can\u2019t assume existing procedures will be adequate. Businesses need to step back, conduct a full risk assessment and consider the changes required,\u201d WorkSafe central regional manager Nigel Formosa said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBusinesses must first ask whether the job can somehow be done from ground level. If you can\u2019t eliminate the need to work at height, consider using an elevated work platform or scaffolding.<\/p>\n
\u201cFall arrest systems should be the last line of defence \u2013 not the first option.\u201d<\/p>\n
WorkSafe said Dyeming\u2019s recovery took 10 months.<\/p>\n
It said falls from height were a leading cause of workplace deaths and serious injuries, but were entirely preventable.<\/p>\n
\u2018Five days missing\u2019<\/p>\n
Dyeming said he still had no memory of his fall or the immediate aftermath, until he woke up in Wellington Hospital\u2019s intensive care unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve basically got five days missing from my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he wanted to acknowledge KiwiRail\u2019s support of him since the fall and at the time for providing accommodation for friends and family in Wellington as they stayed by his bedside.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I\u2019d rather not have fallen [but] a lot of good\u2019s come of out. No one should ever fall again.<\/p>\n
\u201cKiwiRail\u2019s supported me to develop a whole lot of health and safety tools.\u201d<\/p>\n
KiwiRail chief infrastructure officer Siva Sivapakkiam. Photo \/ RNZ, Rayssa Almeida<\/p>\n
Dyeming said his employer had taken the incident seriously and was genuinely horrified at what happened.<\/p>\n
Two years on, he\u2019s fully functional at work, although he\u2019s not back to full fitness away from the job.<\/p>\n
Dyeming is a keen runner, but can now only run for about 1 to 1.5km at a time. He hopes to work his way to longer distances.<\/p>\n
KiwiRail commits to doing better<\/p>\n
KiwiRail chief infrastructure officer Siva Sivapakkiam said the rail operator deeply regretted the injuries Dyeming suffered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have worked hard since the incident to ensure care has been provided to him, including meeting his expenses and providing compensation, along with ensuring his reintegration into our workforce,\u201d Sivapakkiam said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKiwiRail accepts that it could have better assessed the specific risks involved in constructing the mast and done more to ensure that workers used safety equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the incident, it had put measures in place, including tightening requirements for teams working at height and design changes to telecommunications poles so workers could move freely without disconnecting from the mast.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, KiwiRail has committed to a substantial safety programme to continuously improve safety outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He fell in October 2023 near Whanganui. He was flown to Wellington Hospital and later transferred to Palmerston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[19348,74,138,33912,3592,19631,78,10933,1736,17747,130,111,139,69,79703,131,12767],"class_list":["post-163327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-19348","tag-after","tag-business","tag-ellingham","tag-fall","tag-fined","tag-in","tag-injured","tag-jimmy","tag-kiwirail","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-preventable","tag-than","tag-worker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}