McKinnon Brothers Floorings and Furnishings Ltd. (Glace Bay, Nova Scotia) was fined $5,750 and ordered to donate $15,000 to the provincial Labour Department’s education trust fund after an employee injured his hand in a table saw accident, according to the local Cape Breton Post.
The company pleaded guilty to violations of the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act, including failure to ensure proper safeguards were in place operating machinery and failure to take all precautions to ensure employees were properly trained in the operation of machinery, the report said.
The court documents stated a company employee severed his middle and ring fingers while using a table saw in the process of installing wood flooring. No saw guard was in place when the accident happened. The accident happened May 4, 2016.
The investigation of the incident found no one had ever seen a guard installed on the saw; no written safety procedures for using the machine existed, which the law requires; and the company failed to train the employee on the use of the table saw.
