IMAGINE kissing your partner goodbye for work on a Thursday morning and never seeing them again.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Imagine answering the door to ashen-face police officers that same night and being told the love of your life has been killed on the job.
Imagine having to sit your children down and tell them their daddy is gone.
Chantelle Brown doesn’t have to imagine.
The 25-year-old former Wagga woman is living it.
Her partner Adrian Heber was killed last week at a Wodonga factory after being crushed between two steel staircases.
Ms Brown isn’t just being forced to confront her unthinkable grief, but she has to confront the swirling uncertainty of her financial future.
The couple has five children between them – and another on the way – and like many young families in regional areas, they live hand to mouth.
But while for now the lights have gone out in Ms Brown’s world, she should remember that light can escape from life’s darkest corners.
Already, a fundraising account has been established by Ms Brown’s Wagga-based sister, Angela Godden, and almost $5000 has flowed in.
And you better believe the cascade of money and love will continue to flow.
In today’s media landscape, macabre details of death are hard to escape – gangland killings, twisted car wrecks and bloody terrorist attacks.
Amid all the clamour, outrage and grief over these high-profile deaths, barely a peep is heard about the thousands of Australians who die each year in the workplace, just like Mr Heber.
Mr Heber’s tragic death should be another jolting reminder that we can no longer ignore workplace safety.
The issues holding Australia back in occupational health and safety are complex.
Some are structural, some attitudinal, some are to do with Australia's capacity as a globally small economy to quickly introduce new safety design and technology.
But underpinning all these issues is the "care factor".
Do we, as a society, really care about enough about OHS to demand change?
What will it take to penetrate the national psyche and change the culture of apathy around workplace safety?
We owe it to people like Mr Heber, and those left behind, to put safety first.