Compliance

Handyman caught up in dangerous circumstance at early learning service

Freya Lucas

Mar 31, 2025

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A worker employed to carry out maintenance tasks at an early learning service in the West Australian suburb of Donnybrook was impacted when the roof of a service he was working on collapsed.

The worker was sent to Donnybrook, which is 200 kilometres south of Perth, to attend to a number of issues in July 2022.

He was working on the roof of the service cleaning out the gutters when he climbed onto the roof itself to access a section which could not be reached while standing on a ladder. As he walked on a flat section of roof it collapsed and he fell 2.5 meters to the ground, sustaining a skull fracture which left him paralysed from the waist down as the result of a spinal cord injury.

The company employing the man has been fined $175,000 in relation to the incident, as well as being ordered to pay $6,000 in costs after pleading guilty to failing to provide a safe workplace which led to their employee’s serious harm.

WorkSafe Commissioner Sally North said the employer could have given workers equipment that would have allowed them to clean the gutters without climbing onto the roof, noting that workers were not informed of the risks of the plastic sheets on the roof, even though the company had carried out jobs at the centre before.

In addition, no formal induction or training was given to workers at the company on cleaning gutters or working at heights in general, the commissioner said.

“The injured worker was instead shown how to clean gutters by getting on a roof with a blower vacuum, and no training was given to the other worker,” she added, calling for the incident to serve as a reminder to all employers of the duty of care employers have to minimise the risk of falls where they can.

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