The relatives of a Chinese worker, who fell to his death at the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower on January 29, 2008, have been awarded $174,562 in damages.
Xia Deyun, 38, died at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital from injuries as a result of the fall from the $680 million Ministry of Legal Affairs building, Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain, which was under construction at the time. Yesterday, Master Patricia Sobion, presiding in the Port-of-Spain High Court, awarded the damages. Deyun and a co-worker on January 29, 2008 were in the process of erecting a chute to flow concrete to a staircase. Deyun was climbing down a scaffold to get more material when he slipped and fell. His back hit the edge of a concrete parapet wall, before he fell a further 22 feet to the ground, head first.
Following his death, then Minister of Labour, Rennie, Dumas, ordered an investigation into the matter. Two weeks late, a report was presented. According to the findings of a report, dated February 11, 2008, produced by the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OSHA,) Deyun's death came after failure of his employers, Times Construction Company Limited, to give him safety training. No charges were ever recommended by OSHA inspectors, even though a fatality was involved. Such charges are now impossible. The OSHA Act imposes a six-month statutory limit beyond which charges cannot be laid.
According to the OSHA report on Deyun's death, the main contractor for the Ministry of Legal Affairs Tower, Sunway Construction (Caribbean) Limited, sub-contracted the Chinese firm, Times Construction Company Limited. Deyun had worked for Times Construction for one year before his death. According to the report, "at the time of the accident, the victim was undertaking scaffolding erection work without the use of a fall arrest system." An official claimed that "personal fall arrest equipment (full body harness) was issued to Mr Deyun sometime earlier."
However, OSHA investigators concluded that, "the deceased was not a competent scaffold erector and did not receive training by his employer, Times, or the principal contractor, Sunway, in scaffold erection". Additionally, "a safety system of work, such as personal fall protection equipment, was not used during the erection of the scaffold and chute by the deceased. The investigators stated: "There was no ladder placed on the scaffold, forcing Deyun to use the five-and-a-half inch bracing at the scaffold side to descend, thus causing his feet to slip off the bracing and him falling. "Hazard identification was done to identify and reduce the potential hazards for the work activity undertaken at the time of the accident but it was not reviewed prior to the activity or followed.
"A job safety analysis provided for Sunway was not job specific and dated January 9, 2006, two years prior to the accident," the investigators found.