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A lack of machinery safety at a Quebec farm is what led to the death of a 34-year-old Guatemalan worker last year, the province’s workplace health and safety board (CNESST) has confirmed.
The report’s findings were made public Thursday by the CNESST, which investigated the Oct. 19 2022 death at Ferme Norlou, a family-run dairy and field crop farm located in the Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes municipality in the province’s Mauricie region north of the St. Lawrence River.
The investigation, led by inspectors Mathieu Ruel and Daniel Lemieux, found that the crucial safety shortcomings were the lack of a hazard signal on equipment and the absence of protection on an industrial mixer’s door.
The CNESST says the emergency label on the machine indicating the risks involved with using the mixer was illegible. The board believes these factors contributed to the early morning death of the 34-year-old after his body was found at 6 a.m. inside the machine.
CNESST communications officer Audréane Lafrenière wrote in her report that he had been working in the farm’s dairy production and was doing his daily morning task, which he would do alone, of preparing food for the cattle using the mixer to combine different nutrients.
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Lafrenière said the man was attempting to remove feed stuck in the door opening while the machine was in use when his clothing got caught in a moving part and dragged him into the mixer, where he died.
Emergency services were immediately called but the man’s death was pronounced on site.
A video published by CNESST shows a rendering of the farm’s layout and the sequence of events they believe led to the tragic accident.
After authorities assessed the event and the machinery, the board says the farm’s owners immediately complied with safety requirements.
These requirements included to cease the use of the machine implicated in the incident, an AM325 Valmetal mixer that had been in use since 2001, and to add all necessary safety features to the equipment.
The CNESST release said the man had been working at the farm for several months, and was using a translation app on his phone to translate instructions from French to Spanish. He eventually learned some French and would translate French to other foreign workers on site.
For every 100,000 farm workers in Quebec, 16 are killed in workplace accidents every year and 174 are hospitalized, according to the INSPQ.
It did not say if the man had been working overtime hours in the time leading up to the accident.
The release says the farm does not employ unionized workers, just temporary foreign workers that rotate through seasons.
Back in October 2022 when the incident was first reported, Saint-Luc-de-Vincennes Mayor Daniel Houle said the farm was modern, well-run, had good working conditions and supported its workers.
According to recent data by the province’s public health institute (INSPQ), for every 100,000 farm workers in Quebec, 16 are killed in workplace accidents every year, and 174 are hospitalized.
Agriculture machinery accidents are the primary cause of death and injury — they account for 60 per cent of children’s farm-related deaths and 69 per cent of farm-related deaths of people over 65. The INSPQ says half of those incidents involve a tractor. Other deadly events include falls from heights, incidents with animals, work in small enclosed spaces and road collisions.
A report published earlier this year found that the number of temporary foreign workers is on the rise in Quebec, and the province’s labour minister said he expected the trend to continue.
In March, Labour Minister Jean Boulet told a news conference that the number of foreign workers rose to 38,500 in 2022, up from 23,300 in 2019.
Another report from 2022 found that up to 80 per cent of people who suffer workplace injuries in Montreal are immigrants.
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