A spate of serious incidents including the death of a woman who was run over by a reversing truck near Werribee this afternoon are being investigated by WorkSafe Victoria . They have sparked a call for workers and employers to keep their minds on the job. The Werribee incident is the second Victorian truck run-over fatality in a week. Earlier, a teenager was crushed by a truck at a Ballarat gold mine.
The incident happened at a vegetable-growing property in O’Connors road. The woman was aged in her sixties. Earlier, four fingers and the top joint of a fifth were amputated from man unloading steel from a truck at a construction site in Normanby Street, Warragul and a cherry-picker containing two men tipped over in Church Street, Richmond.
The men in the cherry picker rode the machine to the ground where one was taken to the Alfred hospital with back and leg injuries. He had been painting an eight storey building, but was about six metres up when the machine fell.
These safety incidents prompted WorkSafe Victoria to warn people of the need to constantly be aware of the risks in their work. Although the three inquiries were at an early stage, employers and workers had to think carefully about what they were doing and ensure everything practicable was done to ensure workplaces were as safe as possible.
In every workplace everyone has to take responsibility for safety. It is about employers making sure people are properly trained, supervised and have the right tools for the job, setting standards and ensuring they are followed.
WorkSafe Victoria have a wide range of safety publications for a range of hazards and occupations.