MONTREAL – On August 6, 2013, a 32-year-old West-Island man lost his life near a construction site when a steel plate fell on him.
The CSST has concluded its investigation and found that were two things that led to Saad Syed’s death: lack of training, and negligence.
“There was no training at all done by the employers,” said Jean-Francois Beaudry, a spokesperson for the CSST.
Syed died when a metal plate weighing six tonnes fell on him on the corner of De La Montagne and Rene-Levesque.
“The plate just fell on the pedestrian that was on Rue de la Montagne,” said Beaudry.
Workers didn’t attach a safety latch – a practice called ‘slinging’ in construction circles.
When the plate touched the ground, it slipped of its moorings.
The family of the victim said nobody from the CSST told them that the investigation had concluded, or that the results were being made public.
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Global News asked the CSST about this, but the agency denied it.
“We told the family there was a conference press, and we sent them the report,” insisted Beaudry.
The CSST levied two fines, one against Excavation L. Martel, contractors on the Icone condo project and Pomerleau, who are supervising it.
Martel didn’t return Global News’ calls.
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Pomerleau said it has implemented new procedures.
“We didn’t wait for the report to come out to address the situation on our worksites,” said Carolyne Van Der Meer, a spokesperson for Pomerlau.
“We made sure that refresher training was given on all our supervisory staff and all our subcontractors.”
When the accident happened it reverberated throughout the island.
When Syed worked at the Geos Language Institute on Sherbrooke street, he had dreams of bigger things.
He had just signed a deal to work at a college in Saudi Arabia, but he never made the trip.
Marc Berube worked with him for a year and jointly taught an English class with him.
“I texted him halfway through the class and I was like, hey is everything okay?” said Berube.
“It was very abnormal for him to show up late. And he was gone already.”
Berube warmly remembers Syed as a good friend and an ambitious teacher who was looking forward to an adventurous future.
“You know it’s such a sad thing,” he said.
“Nobody deserves that. Whatsoever.”
He hopes measures are taken to ensure fatal construction accidents never happen again.
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