The owner of a forestry block in New Zealand where a man was crushed to death alleges the consultants he hired to clear his trees put pressure on the man to complete the work in an “impossible” time frame. Source: Stuff.co.nz
Michael Steven Langford, 28, died on November 29, 2013 on a forestry site at Foxhill, near Nelson, that his company was contracted to harvest.
Coroner Christopher Devonport said at an inquest in the Nelson District Court that there were questions over whether Langford was affected by fatigue and if that was as a result of pressure arising from contractual work for Total Harvest Solutions (THS), which managed the site.
Langford was found by his employees, he was wedged between two logs and had been working on a skidder.
It was suggested during the inquest that he was attaching logs to the skidder when a brake failed causing Langford to be jammed between the logs.
Owner of the site David Leary hired THS to clear the block of 6000 tonnes of 20-year-old pine trees.
He said a month prior to Langford’s death there was pressure put on Langford by THS to complete the job by early December.
“That was a physical impossibility to do this.” Leary said he told Langford that he did not care when the job was completed.
“You can only do what you can do,” he told Langford. “I don’t want to push you.”
He said the weather was against Langford and his team, he said.
“They had a torrid time.”
Leary said Langford worked harder and longer than the rest of his employees. He would arrive about 6am and be working on until about 7pm each night, including the night before Langford’s death.
However, lawyer for THS Kerry Smith showed Leary a transcript of a Worksafe interview where he said his understanding that THS wanted the job completed by December was “hearsay”.
Coroner Devonport asked Leary if he had any direct conversation with THS that the job should be completed by December. Leary said he had not.
Earlier director of THS Paul Jensen said there was never any expectation to do the job by December.
There was also no suggestion Langford was not coping with the workload, Jensen said.
“He never said anything to me that he might not be coping with the job or acted that he might be fatigued.”
However Jensen did offer Leary the opportunity to pull out of the contract due to the falling export price for logs.
Leary said he would not pull out of the contract because you could not expect a contractor to come in with all their gear, work for only a fortnight, and then tell them to “get out”.
In the contract between Leary and THS the only date specified was some time in January, he said.
Langford’s partner Kim Moore told the inquest that Langford had spent his whole life in the bush and was a “genuine expert in his trade”.
“He was a careful and meticulous worker.”
Moore said he and her partner had one child and another one on the way when Langford died.
In the two days before his death she had not seen him as he was leaving for work at 5.30am and arriving back at 9pm each night.
“He was under pressure to get the job done.”
Cororner Devonport adjourned the inquest.
Lawyer for Moore, Gerard Dewar said that it was a “sad and tragic” accident but there were still some aspects of Langford’s death that needed to be looked at.
