A construction worker has been handed a jail sentence after he threw a six-kilogram concrete block and hit an apprentice on the head.

The 49-year-old worker was a subcontractor in the installation of air-conditioning at a Brisbane school. He was drilling holes into concrete while on an elevated work platform (EWP).

He was an experienced concrete driller and appropriately licenced to operate the EWP and carry out the job. Each hole he drilled produced a six-kilogram piece of concrete waste.

As the EWP belonged to primary air-conditioning contractor, one of their apprentices was driving the EWP between locations where holes needed to be drilled.

Once the EWP was in position, the apprentice got out and the worker raised it to the level required to drilled the hole.

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He then lowered the EWP back down to the ground, before the apprentice got back in and drove it about 20 metres to the location of the next hole before the worker got back in and raised it to the level where he was to drill the next hole.

A group of workers were walking around the area. They, the worker, and the apprentice engaged in some banter about not wearing hardhats. The worker lobbed the concrete billet from where he was positioned in the EWP in the general direction towards where the other workers were standing.

The concrete struck the apprentice on the head knocking him to the ground. He sustained a serious head injury, a fractured skull, bleeding on the brain, a serious head laceration, black eye, damage to sinus cavity, chipped teeth, and bruising to his shoulder and collarbone.

On 28 September 2022, the worker was found guilty by a jury in Brisbane District Court for breaching section 31 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 having failed to comply with his health and safety duty pursuant to section 28 of the Act. He was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, which he wholly suspended for four months.

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