When charges over the workplace death of her son were dropped, Kay Catanzariti warned it would happen again if something didn’t change.
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Four years after Griffith man Ben Catanzariti was killed by a falling concrete boom, a 62-year-old Sydney man was killed by a falling crane. Both accident happened on Canberra construction sites.
Mrs Catanzariti renewed her push for a senate inquiry into fatalities on industrial work sites.
Mrs Catanzariti said this tragedy might not have occurred had charges not been dropped against the company and engineer responsible for the machine.
“It happened because they (the DPP) didn’t send a message when my son got killed,” she said.
“We were told that Ben’s case, there were a lot of companies waiting, watching to see what the outcome was in Ben’s case. If they hadn’t have dropped the charges in Ben’s case and kept it open, people in the ACT still would have been on tenterhooks.”
Schwing Australia Pty Ltd and NSW engineer Phillip James O’Rourke were responsible for maintaining the concrete pump that collapsed on July 21, 2012, killing Mr Catanzariti and seriously injuring two others.
It had been alleged that the pump had only recently been serviced and that bolts were incorrectly tightened, and then not checked properly.
However the DPP was forced to drop the charges in May this year after two reports, one commissioned by Schwing, failed to prove the company and the engineer were responsible.
A distraught Mrs Catanzariti had warned that the failure to prosecute the company would lead to more deaths.
Mrs Catanzariti, who begged prosecutors to keep the case open, said she felt sick when she learnt of the man’s death at the University of Canberra public hospital worksite last Thursday.
The disability support worker had previously met with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to push for a senate inquiry into deaths on industrial sites around Australia.
She said the ACT Government must mandate exclusion zones around equipment like cranes and concrete booms.
Mrs Catanzariti said her thoughts are with the man's family and coworkers.
“I relive Ben's death every day. I relive it every time I see a concrete truck or see a boom,” she said.
“There’s a wife who’s lost their husband, kids who’ve lost their father. I feel for all of the workers who saw it happen and tried to help this poor man.”
