Our compliance and enforcement activities may lead to prosecutions being filed in the South Australian Employment Tribunal and the Magistrates Court.
A prosecution may start either by our own initiative or following our consideration of a request from a person under section 1 of the Work Health and Safety Act SA. If you would like to commence a prosecution under section 1 of the Work Health and Safety Act SA , click here. The piggery employee was performing a task that involved loading pig feed into a tractor mill, driving it to a silo and transferring the feed from the tractor mill to the silo with the use of an auger.
The auger had a rotating part called a flight, which transfers the feed from the basin, upwards into the silo. The lower section of the auger which sat in the basin was not guarded. Having transferred the feed to the silo, the worker was walking around the auger to reach the controls when she tripped and fell, extending her hands to break her fall.
Her right hand landed on the rotating auger flight , severely lacerating her thumb and severing the middle three fingers. The SafeWork SA investigation found that the auger had a guard fitted when it was purchased in and a risk assessment conducted by the Schmidts identified guarding as a control measure to reduce risk of harm.
A Safe Use of Plant, Guards and Augers policy at the piggery was also in place, requiring guards to be fitted to any machinery where moving parts were a hazard. However, contrary to its own policy, the guard was removed and was not in place when the worker was trained to use the auger, or on the day of the incident.
