Worker dies after fall at Doncaster East construction site
04 Apr 2024•BlueSafe Team•Source: WorkSafe VIC
WorkSafe is investigating the death of a 56-year-old worker following a fall at a residential construction site in Doncaster East. The incident came amid a series of serious falls at building sites.
The worker is understood to have been pouring concrete when he fell more than two metres at about 4:30pm on Tuesday 26 March. He suffered life-threatening head injuries and died in hospital on Thursday.
His death brought Victoria’s confirmed workplace fatality count for 2024 to 11, compared with 18 work-related deaths at the same point in 2023. WorkSafe responded to a serious building-site fall on each of the first three days of the week of the incident, taking the total to four in nine days and six over three weeks.
WorkSafe Executive Director Health and Safety Narelle Beer said falls from height were preventable but continued to be a leading cause of workplace harm. "A fall can happen in just seconds but the consequences can last a lifetime, including devastating injuries and loss of life," Dr Beer said.
"It might be easy to think that a tragic incident will never happen on your site, but if safety is not the top priority every day then the chances are high that it will."
Nine Victorian workers died following falls from height in 2023, including four construction workers. More than 400 claims were accepted for construction workers injured in falls from height that year, including 160 involving ladders, 46 involving steps and stairways, 31 involving buildings or structures, 27 involving scaffolding and 13 involving openings in floors, walls or ceilings.
Dr Beer said inspectors had made more than 3,700 construction-site visits so far in 2024 and issued more than 1,100 notices. "We have a dedicated team of inspectors visiting sites across the state and there is zero tolerance for employers who fail to take the well-known risks of falls seriously," she said.
WorkSafe completed 39 successful prosecutions involving fall-from-height risks in 2023, resulting in court-imposed fines of more than $1.9 million in total. To prevent falls, WorkSafe advised employers to use the highest possible measures within the five-level hierarchy of controls.
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