"Reducing Heavy Equipment Fatalities: Insights from WorkSafeNB’s Michel Cyr"

Heavy equipment accounts for nearly 50% of workplace fatalities in New Brunswick—a trend that’s been rising over the past few years. In our latest podcast, Perley talked with Michel Cyr, Manager of Investigations at WorkSafeNB, to discuss why these incidents happen and what can be done to prevent them. From blind spots and alarm fatigue to the importance of signalers and proximity technology, Michel shares practical strategies and calls for industry collaboration to make worksites safer.

Transcript

 Perley Brewer   0:11
 Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. Today's podcast is going to focus on Worksafe and BS Heavy Equipment campaign, our guest, and to talk about the campaign is Michael Sear, manager of investigations.
 At Worksafe and B. Welcome, Michael.
Cyr, Michel   0:30
 Hey Perley, thanks for the invitation. Thanks for allowing us to talk about this important campaign.
Perley Brewer   0:35
 So Michel, let's start by getting you to tell our our folks that are listening today about what do you do at Worksafe NB.
Cyr, Michel   0:42
 As the manager of investigation for Worksafe New Brunswick, I manage a team of seven investigators. We cover the entire province and in our role we investigate all catastrophic events, so those would be bridge collapse, building collapse, trust.
 Collapse. We had a windmill collapse, so anything that would be catastrophic, but not necessarily have any injuries. We investigate serious incidents. Fatalities. We look after prosecutions as well. So after we've done the investigation and there's been an internal review.
 If the determination is made that we are going to seek a prosecution, that I would send that to the Crown Prosecutor for review on their part and I would we testify at the corners inquest when we are requested to attend a corners inquest to explain the findings of our investigation.
 And our investigations.
 We we have 4 main goals, so we always look to identify the cause. What was the cause of the incident or the catastrophic event. And then once we've identified all the causes, we look at preventing these incidents from happening again at that workplace specifically. So we make sure that the.
 Issue was addressed. We will look at supervision. We look at health and safety program, the committee, whatever we need to look at, we would look at to make sure that the no such incident happens again at that workplace. Then we will look at making sure it doesn't happen at other workplace, which brings us to.
 Initiatives like this. So once we identify that we are seeing reoccurring.
 Themes coming up in our investigations, fatalities in these case then we would reach out and try to prevent these incidents from happening at other workplaces. So so we we work basically with a lot with everyone internally.
 From consultants to hygiene, ergonomics, health and safety officers.
 We we also work a lot externally with partners to help us spread the message.
 Get information out to the public to associations.
 Yeah. So we we have an interesting job of of seeing.
 Unfortunately, events and we all most of the times we're called in when something tragic has happened. So it's important that we get the best lessons out of these 'cause. We don't want to have a huge pool of samples before we start doing something for preventing these from happening somewhere else.
 So we try to have an impact right away.
Perley Brewer   3:28
 So.
 So Michel, why a heavy equipment campaign?
Cyr, Michel   3:34
 Since 2021, heavy equipment and then I'll include like I it'll be gravel trucks, it would be transport, the excavators, bulldozers, backhoes. So that's what we mean by heavy equipment. It represents about 50% of all the fatalities that we've had in New Brunswick.
 So once we see this happening year over year, we decided that we definitely need to not only talk to people about the importance of safety around heavy equipment, talk to operators about the safety of operating their heavy equipment.
 But I think it's also reaching out and asking people what do they feel is not working because we've legislatively, we've implemented a lot over the last few years, all these equipments that we're seeing, they do have the backup alarms. They do have travel alarms, they do have backup cameras, they do have.
 Mirrors. Now there are new equipment coming in with proximity alarms, and we're still seeing the incidents happen and we're not seeing a decrease in the frequency. So there's definitely.
 Aspect of this where we are reaching out not only to share information, but looking for feedback from the industries, from the operators, from the employees. We're definitely looking for comments on or in suggestions like how can we improve safety around heavy equipment.
Perley Brewer   5:00
 So what are the biggest issues working around heavy equipment?
Cyr, Michel   5:06
 What we've been seeing is there's been a lot of pedestrians that have been struck or run over by heavy equipment over the last four years and.
 What we are seeing a lot is people are telling US employees are telling us in the field on project sites that they become immune to hearing the alarms when we get there and do the investigation, we do an inspection on on all heavy equipment that we find.
 And.
 Everything is functioning properly in most of the cases and when we talk to the pedestrians, they're saying we keep hearing the alarm, but it's all the time from multiple sources. We might have three or four gravel trucks, a bulldozer, a back, a well load, and everything is going at the same time and.
 People get immune to it. They they kind of turn a deaf ear to it, where they're going about their day. But the new alarm coming in is not something that they really pay attention to. So that's the number one thing that we are hearing when we're doing these investigations is.
 How effective are the alarms when people get immune to it? Now for a a pedestrian who's not used to working in the trades or on a project site when they hear the alarm, it catches their attention 'cause it's new, right? And it and it works. But for the people who've been working there for for months or years or in the field for.
 Dozens of years we see that they're immune to it. They can't hear it anymore. And the second thing that we're seeing a lot is understanding blind spots on heavy equipment. Unfortunately, we've had a few incidents with gravel choice, but we've had fatalities.
 And every time we have a fatality, I will gather everyone who's there from the employer or or just president at the workplace who worked there obviously. And we're going to do blind spots. And what we do is we stand behind the gravel truck, for example, and.
 Ask them how far back do I have to be for you to see me and we typically get 40 feet 50 feet. But when we do these exercises, I've gone all the way back to 283 feet and that just means that at 283 feet.
 The driver of the truck of the gravel truck in this case could barely see the edge of my shoulders on the left and the right side. I would have had to gone back even further for him to see my whole body. So there's a lot of education required by every employer. I think, depending on the piece of equipment.
Perley Brewer   7:29
 OK.
Cyr, Michel   7:40
 To understand what are those blind spots, how far back behind a gravel truck, in this case, for example, do people have to be in order to not be in a blind spot when we're looking at the A pillar? How wide is that blind spot? And it's independent to each piece of equipment because.
 When we look at gravel trucks, I've had some at 190 feet all the way to 280 feet. And and how do we know what the blind spots are? Unless the operator and the employer have really tested it out and looked at it.
 And lastly, the one thing that I that we're trying to educate people that we're finding out is not well known is there are legal requirements for somewhat for a signaler when a truck is being backed or a piece of equipment and the operator can't see behind.
 They need to have a spotter. So a spotter is someone who would have full full field of vision behind the equipment that's being backed and in direct communication with the operator. That way the operator communicates with the spotter who is seeing the entirety of what's happening behind.
 The equipment or the vehicle and then they can back up safely whenever we have this conversation after an incident, people are most of the time surprised that there is such legislation. So it's educating people on.
 Yes, you might have the travel alarms, the backup alarms, but people don't always pay attention because they get immune to it. Every operator should understand and know the blind spots on their equipment, and it changes from equipment to equipment. And if they can't back up safely, then.
 Don't back up safely. Make sure you ask for someone to help you to guide you, and the employer should be aware of that so that they provide the resources.
 On on a project site or it just?
Perley Brewer   9:32
 So, so to go back for your second to backup alarms and the issue of people's get really to the point that they just don't hear them anymore or they become so routine. Any potential thoughts from your end as to?
 Solutions for that.
Cyr, Michel   9:50
 We at our latest health and Safety Conference, we we have two Presentations, 1 in French, one in English. We had a lot of operators and one thing that's new on the market that I found were proximity alarms. So they're a sensor that go on individual.
 Workers and it a lot of them are a watch, so if they get close to a piece of equipment, who has the sensor, it will actually notify the worker by vibrating on their arm that they're close to heavy equipment and it will notify the operator of the heavy equipment.
 That there's someone in proximity. So that's we've seen those in a few workplaces. I think it's definitely the next step into notifying the operators. But what was interesting when I talked about this at the conference is we had a few operators saying, Michel, it's just another alarm.
 Right. We're we're not hearing all the the beeping going on and now we're just adding an extra layer of it. So I think there's a limit to what we can do as far as sensors and alarms and and notifications.
 It's really the human factor, the aspect of it to how do we make sure that people are paying attention and are are focused on their environment and not just the task. Because what happens when we're doing the task? There's also a restriction in the difference between the field of view and the field of vision.
 So when we're sitting there, we're looking, we're thinking that we're seeing 120°, but for example, when a forklift operator is focusing on getting those forks in the pallet, then their field of vision could probably be 10°, right, because they are really focused and they can't see the perimeter, the periphery of it.
Perley Brewer   11:30
 Mm-hmm.
Cyr, Michel   11:34
 And that's where a lot of incidents will happen, because there might be someone is right next to the piece of equipment thinking the operator can see them, but they can't just because they're focused on a task that narrows what they actually see.
 So yeah, there's a lot of human behavior to consider here. I thought the proximity alarm was good. I think it is good. But it's interesting to see the operator's point of view saying it's just another alarm going off now for the employees. If it's something on their wrists.
 Or or on their their person that vibrates. Maybe that's enough to give them an indication that heavy equipment is nearby, so all of them have a specific role and they all work. But we need to understand their limitations. I think that's the next step. It's it's not just looking at what benefit does it give.
 To us, it's really understanding the limitation that that's how we can increase safety.
Perley Brewer   12:32
 Now when you look at blind spots, placement of mirrors, the adjustment of mirrors on heavy equipment, if you look at that as an issue to do, the operators of this equipment have their proper setting is that come into play at all?
Cyr, Michel   12:47
 Yes, we have.
 Yes, it has for at least one fatality that I can think of where mirrors were missing on an excavator. And when we asked the employer to install the mirrors and we went back, I asked the operators, can you adjust the mirrors and a lot of them did not know.
 How to adjust the mirrors or what was the intended purposes of the mirrors on a piece of heavy equipment and anyone listening to us? Who says, jeez, I operate a piece of equipment, I have mirrors. How do I know how to adjust them? The owner's manual specifically talks about adjusting mirrors for every piece of equipment and typically.
Perley Brewer   13:09
 Hmm.
Cyr, Michel   13:28
 It will require you to see 360 degree around the equipment, so whatever you can't see with your eyes through a window in front of you, the mirrors have to be adjusted so that one day all work together as a system. You can see the entirety of around your.
 Piece of equipment. So we have seen a few of these one one comment that we get is the in excavators specifically they're sometimes used in forestry operation and then in a on a project site then on a civil project and the mirrors will be missing because they were.
 Damage while doing the forestry operation well, that doesn't neglect the obligation of the employer to make sure the mirrors are installed. It's not a defence or an excuse to say, well, I worked in forestry last week. This week I'm working downtown Fredericton, so I don't have any mirrors because of what I did last week.
 They need to make sure that the mirrors are properly working and functional, and they're all present, and if they're going to be doing activities like forestry, they need to be either buy the proper.
 Guards for it or replace the mirrors before going on projects, right? And it's part of the daily inspection. Every piece of equipment has at the back of it. When you look at the owner's manual, it typically has a daily, a weekly and a monthly inspection that has to be done on the equipment and the mirrors will be factored into those inspections. For most of them.
 Thank you.
Perley Brewer   14:53
 Now when you talk about pedestrians, that's being distracted, whether it's cell phones, whatever. Is that an issue that's been identified?
Cyr, Michel   15:02
 We had one incident where we had one pedestrian on the cell phone. One thing that's being identified more than cell phones are just these pods that go in people's ears and they're easy. They're easy to put in. They're connected to the phone via Bluetooth, so there's no wires that can be seen.
Perley Brewer   15:13
 Mm-hmm.
Cyr, Michel   15:21
 They can be discreet, easily hidden, and that would definitely increase the risk we're hearing about those on project sites when we've had incidents, we're hearing witnesses saying, well, that person's used to wearing iPods or they were something that reduces their ability to hear what's going on.
 We've had one fatality where we had one individual on his cell phone, but that would be the only one we've had injured where the cell phone was a factor.
Perley Brewer   15:49
 So has heavy equipment always historically been a concern or is it something that you just have noticed in the last three or four years that seems to be?
 Been getting a little worse.
Cyr, Michel   16:02
 I think it has been, but we're seeing tendencies coming back when we're talking about singulars, for example, that's been a requirement since 1992 in New Brunswick.
 Over the years, we've seen increase in legislation across Canada requiring alarms requiring the backup camera requiring a means to move the equipment safely.
 By backing up having mirrors, cameras, the legislation gives a lot of room to the owners of these heavy equipment on how they're going to do it with a signaler, with mirrors, with a backup, what legislation has.
 Been there since 1992, the industry has for years kept improving, but better alarms like we went from backup alarms to travel alarms, which means whether it moves forward or back on an escalator, it will beep.
 Better camera, better resolution for the cameras, more mirrors. The proximity alarms are are something that's fairly new. We're seeing backup camera system aftermarket available for gravel trucks. We're seeing them available for snow plows where there's actually heater to make sure that the lens doesn't get covered with ice.
 So we are constantly seeing improvement in technology for us.
 Up to five years ago, we would rarely see incidents with heavy equipment. My first five years as an investigator is something that we rarely came across and over the last 4-5 years it the frequency of incident has increased significantly and and tragically as well.
Perley Brewer   17:45
 So when you talk to your colleagues across Canada, are they seeing a similar trend?
Cyr, Michel   17:50
 Yes.
Perley Brewer   17:51
 Hmm.
Cyr, Michel   17:52
 Yes, we're communicating monthly. I I meet with my colleagues in the plan of Canada and we're all seeing an increase of injuries with heavy equipment transport trucks as well. The federal, the the on the Fed side are also seeing an increase. When I'm talking with them.
Perley Brewer   18:11
 Now you mentioned a moment ago. Snow plows and snow vehicles that removed snow. I guess in a lot of cases they probably would work on hours that not many people around. But have you had any incidents involving snow plow operators?
Cyr, Michel   18:25
 We have not, no.
Perley Brewer   18:29
 OK, do most accidents happen? I I get a sense from from your discussion that most accidents probably happen when the vehicle's in reverse.
 But do you have something that happen when the vehicles are going forward as well?
Cyr, Michel   18:44
 Most we've had a we have one fatality where a vehicle was moving forward to.
 Yeah, there's two fatalities I can think of. The vehicle is moving forward. The rest that we're either backing or using a backhoe, for example. Right. So an accessory to the equipment.
Perley Brewer   19:02
 Now, are there any specific types of equipment that you have noticed or you you're concerned about, backhoes versus dozers versus trucks, whatever.
Cyr, Michel   19:13
 The most common would be gravel trucks. That's the one we've seen most incidents.
Perley Brewer   19:15
 OK.
Cyr, Michel   19:21
 And those have been backing up most of the times. They have huge blind spots, even moving forward. I remember doing the fatality and we could be up to 30 feet in front of a truck and still not be seen just based on the blind spots.
Perley Brewer   19:27
 Yeah.
 Hmm.
Cyr, Michel   19:37
 So gravel trucks we've had.
 A lot of we had. Yeah, a lot of instance with we've had.
 Loaders backhoes.
 Tractors with buckets in front, so variety of equipment, some of it is just the way it was being operated and others were blind spots.
Perley Brewer   20:03
 So any specific type of equipment stand out. You've mentioned a variety of different types of equipment that that you've had accidents on, but is there any specific type of equipment, gravel trucks probably be the biggest one you you mentioned?
Cyr, Michel   20:17
 Yeah, that would be correct. I think the gravel trucks would be the biggest, yes.
Perley Brewer   20:19
 Yeah.
 So what about size of workplace, small work sites? Medium large? You seen any sort of trend there?
Cyr, Michel   20:30
 The ones that we've seen have been smaller work sites.
Perley Brewer   20:33
 OK.
Cyr, Michel   20:34
 When it comes to the the latest instance we've seen, they've been in a pit inquiry road work.
 Farm equipment. Some of those are just one single piece of equipment, whether it's a tractor, an excavator, we had one, it was two loaders. We had one. It was one backhoe. So smaller project sites would definitely.
 By proportion be the ones we see the most, yes.
Perley Brewer   21:04
 What about operator training and pedestrian training, both as sort of separate issues? Do you see a need for more training on to both of those groups to make them realize the hazards? The dangers?
Cyr, Michel   21:16
 Yes, yes, I believe that would be important and that's part of the strategy that we're going now talking to the operators, some of the video that, that we'll we will share with our communications is really talking from a perspective of an operator.
 Say I can't see there are a lot of a lot of blind spots, right? Help me make sure that it's safe. So I think it it's a lot of education, but I think it's a lot of education on the other's perspective once pedestrians, let's say, on a project site, once the employees who don't operate equipment maybe sit inside the equipment and realize all.
 All the blind spots understands where they can't be seen. I think that gives it a perspective for them and the operator as well. Realizing that I maybe I got to take a few more seconds here before I I move the equipment, but yes, dedicated training.
 Is definitely required. There are specific specific requirements for operators in our legislation, like a few easy tips are making sure that they read the owner's manual, they understand how the piece of equipment works, they know how to adjust the mirrors.
 That they understand that people can't be standing or or sitting or or being on equipment that's not meant to travel to with individuals. Workers on those pieces of equipment, let's say a bucket of a tractor, right. We had an incident where people were inside of it.
Perley Brewer   22:39
 Mm-hmm.
 OK.
Cyr, Michel   22:44
 So I I think it's the operators understanding the responsibilities as well when they're operating a piece of equipment that they're responsible for other safety. But yes, more training specific to operators and specific to the equipment that they're operating.
 On that day, just because you've operated an an excavator doesn't necessarily mean you understand all the blind spots of every excavator. It has to be specific to that piece of equipment they're operating on that day.
Perley Brewer   23:14
 Now has age been seen or shown as a factor either in the operator of the equipment or in the OR in the age of the person that's been hit?
Cyr, Michel   23:24
 We had one incident on a farm where the injured worker was 12 years old and the operator was 19, but the rest of them have been individuals with experience a lot of years of experience. It's not uncommon. I'm thinking of a few we've had where the operators had.
 30-40 years of experience operating their equipment and it was always one of these situations where they've always done it this way and nothing's ever happened. So we're seeing these incidents more with experience operators.
 And experienced employees like relatively experienced like I think the least experience would have been two or three years, but it's not not uncommon for people say I have 1520 years of experience operating or working around heavy equipment.
Perley Brewer   24:12
 So look, Michel, to finish off our Podcast here today, what all is included in your campaign?
Cyr, Michel   24:20
 So we are going to have videos, French and English coming out available talking from a perspective of the operator. We've had other campaigns where we talk about blind spots a lot.
 Those two are videos are available and it's also us reaching out. I think that's the big part of the campaign is we wanna, yes, have the videos available, have the commercials available, but we wanna talk to people. We wanna be out there and listen to people, employees.
 Employers, the industry itself, what what needs to change, how can we prevent these from happening again? I think it's a collaborative approach. I think most of the information is known. It's out there. It's just bringing focus and attention to.
 That these incidents are happening whenever we can be invited to a Podcast like this or talking to employers whether they have 5 employees or 50 employees, we are available. We want to go out, we want to talk to your team. We want to be able to explain the legislation.
 I wanna talk about the incidents that we've had that we've investigated. Sometimes when people realize this incident happened home here in New Brunswick, they pay more attention to it. So this campaign is about educating people, reaching out to people collaborating with people and getting your input.
 In any fashion in any way we can to make sure that we reduce these incidents and, you know, we were years without having them. We need to go back to not seeing these types of tragic events.
Perley Brewer   25:59
 So Michel, while we have you here, any other trends you're seeing beside heavy equipment fatalities that you'd like to mention?
Cyr, Michel   26:08
 Or fatalities. No heavy equipment, I think is really the ones that we're saying. We're talking about fatalities, but the industry I we just need to bring awareness and safety like we've been seeing a decrease now last year we had a significant amount of gas strikes.
 The locates were requested that they were available and operators just weren't following the locate instruction. The employer had the instructions in place, so we have to investigate a lot of those last year's because we already seen an uptrend in it. We're seeing a trend in power lines being hit by gravel trend.
 Again, those could be catastrophic for sure with the high voltage power lines, we're definitely seeing an uptake in those types of incident. So the heavy equipment field, not just for the severity of what we're seeing, but just a totality of the instance we're seeing.
Perley Brewer   26:47
 Mm-hmm.
Cyr, Michel   27:06
 I think that's the new trend that we we need to understand a little better at this point.
Perley Brewer   27:11
 Well, look, Michel, I'd like to thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us today. We certainly appreciate it.
Cyr, Michel   27:18
 Thanks for the opportunity. Have a good day.
Perley Brewer   27:20
 So for our listeners today, stay safe and have a good week.