The operators of a Sioux Lookout area sawmill were fined $48,000 after a worker’s arm was crushed in a 2013 industrial accident.
Justice of the Peace Danalyn MacKinnon imposed the fine on McKenzie Lumber of Thunder Bay in an Ontario Court of Justice in Dryden, Aug. 11.
The trial took place last Dec. 1 in Sioux Lookout. The company was found guilty on March 19.
The court heard that on March 12, 2013, workers at the McKenzie Lumber mill in Hudson, near Sioux Lookout, using an industrial saw machine that cuts round logs into board lumber. The worker’s arm was crushed by a side canter on the machine during a mechanical breakdown
The court determined that the company was in violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that a machine can have maintenance work performed if when a potentially moveable part of a machine is properly blocked.
In addition to the fine, the court imposed a 25-per-cent victim fine surcharge as required by the Provincial Offences Act.
The mill is slated to close on Oct. 4.
