A Wellington gym has been convicted and fined $2000 after failing to fix a weights machine that crushed a gym member.
The Department of Labour said the case highlighted the obligation businesses have to protect clients and customers from harm.
Sports-Wide Ltd pleaded guilty in Wellington District Court to a
charge of failing to take all practicable steps to protect clients from workplace hazards at its Atrium gym on The Terrace.
In December 2005, a gym member became trapped beneath around 300kg of weights after the weights cradle on the leg press machine he was using detached from its rails and fell on him, fracturing his vertebrae in the process.
It took six men to lift the weights carriage to free him.
The leg press was reassembled after the accident, but no fault was found.
Believing the accident was due to operator-error, Sports-Wide Ltd re-commissioned the machine unchanged a week after the incident, and put up a notice instructing users not to load more than 240kg on to the weight stack.
Acting health and safety manager for Wellington-Kapiti Alan Cooper said Sports-Wide Ltd did not report the incident to the Department of Labour, which was alerted by the victim in January 2006.
Mr Cooper said two inspectors visited the gym and noticed immediately that the machine still posed a risk.
The weights cradle had not been altered since the event, and there was still a risk it could detach and crush other users, Mr Cooper said.
A notice prohibiting its use was issued until the equipment was satisfactorily modified a day later.
"It's reasonable to assume the gym wasn't initially aware there was anything deficient with the leg press, but after this serious accident they should have considered more carefully whether the same thing could happen again, and how to prevent it," Mr Cooper said.
- NZPA
