On Trial.....

[245dlc]

As some of you I'm not only a digger operator but I am also a heavy truck driver and in 2009 and 2010 I spent a lot of the construction season here hauling sand and gravel as it was difficult to find any decent digging work as these two summers were quite wet and hauling work was much more steady. Well both seasons we had one large project to finish up the year with and it was to haul 200,000 tonnes of 2" minus limestone gravel for an incredibly huge electrical substation that was starting to be built. Well the first year we couldn't drive the 5 miles down the paved highway because the province was to stupid to upgrade it to the weight standard for our heavy gravel trains (two trailer kinda thing). So we had to take the rural roads that were municipally owned if we didn't want a ticket and were also narrower and all gravel. So the second year they finally decided to upgrade the highway right when we were hauling all this gravel instead of doing it before the big haul started ( this is why I commonly call the Department of Highways the Department of "Holidays"). So at times only one or two trucks could go as the paving crew would be laying tarmac etc. etc. And of course they had summer students doing flagging at times and we had a few issues with them and not coordinating loaded trucks in and empty trucks out so at times we'd have to pass each other with only a couple feet to spare so as not to interfere with the paving crew. Well one fine September/October day I was just leaving the quarry when I heard over the two-way radio that a flag girl got hit, initially I thought maybe somebody got clipped by a mirror or something like that due to the traffic congestion and suffered a minor injury type of thing.....No it came over the radio that the girl who was 21 years old was unresponsive and lying in the muddy ditch on the other side of the road. Turns out this arsehole who didn't like this construction work hit her on purpose at what they first said at a speed of 90km/hr and he was also arguing and fighting with crews on scene including the RCMP (never good) so it wasn't negligence like talking on the phone or doing makeup etc. Well the poor girl was pronounced dead at the hospital and by the time I got there with my load about 45 mins. to an hour later the ambulance of course was long gone but the car was still there and so were her boots as she was knocked right out of them. So it's been a while since I heard anything of this case and for me it's the first time I had been on a job where somebody was killed, I have now been in construction fairly steady for 13 years and it's still the only fatality I've somewhat been around. I sincerely hope the judge treats this like a homicide because if this guy had issues with the way the job was being handled in terms of safety etc. He could of at the very least filed a complaint with Worker Health and Safety or filed a complaint with the company or one of the construction organizations but here's a short article my wife found for me.

http://www.cjob.com/news/winnipeg/story.aspx?ID=1986810