WorkSafe New Zealand | WorkSafe NZ is cautioning small businesses to plan high‑risk, ad-hoc work, after a man was crushed to death while moving heavy machinery on the job.
Mitchell Pool was part of a team moving a 1.84‑tonne press brake into a workshop at Peter Gray Engineering in Ōtorohanga in December 2023.
The business, which carries out engineering and fabrication for the dairy sector, has now been sentenced for its work health and safety failures.
The work area concerned had not been fully prepared for the move, which meant the press brake could not be shifted by a forklift. Instead, moving skates, a stacker, and a farm jack were used. During the move, one of the skates caught in a crack in the concrete floor, causing the machine to become unstable, fall, and fatally crush 31‑year‑old Mr. Pool.
WorkSafe’s investigation found the job was poorly planned, with no task‑specific risk assessment, unclear load limits, unsuitable equipment, and workers exposed to crush risks.
WorkSafe says the tragedy highlights a risk seen too often in small workplaces: jobs that fall outside day‑to‑day routines are tackled without enough planning, the right equipment, or clear safety controls.
The business, which carries out engineering and fabrication for the dairy sector, has been sentenced for its work health and safety failures.
Peter Gray Engineering was ordered to pay reparations of $140,000.04 and a fine of $9,000 after it was charged under sections 36(1)(a) and 48(1) and (2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 – being a PCBU having a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers who work for the PCBU, including Mitchell Robert Thomas Pool, while at work in the business or undertaking, namely moving a press brake into a workshop, did fail to comply with that duty, and that failure exposed the workers to a risk of death or serious injury arising from manually handling heavy plant.
