Incident Investigation

Over a several decades of service to the mechanical and structural engineering disciplines, Ascribe Engineering personnel have provided expert independent advice for legal, insurance and industrial sectors.

In the wake of an incident where a worker was killed by equipment, Ascribe Engineering was commissioned to assess the equipment, the contributing circumstances and to provide an expert opinion.

Date: Subject to legal privilege
Client: Subject to legal privilege
Project Type: Expert witness

About this Project

Ascribe Engineering personnel provide expert, independent and professional engineering advice on mechanical and structural matters when undesirable events take place leading to loss of lives, injuries to personnel, near-misses, environmental impact, loss of production or additional rectification costs.

Ascribe Engineering was commissioned by a legal firm to provide advice on an incident where the operator of industrial equipment was seriously injured leading to their death. The operator was very experienced and the equipment was functioning as intended.

Ascribe Engineering’s commissioning included an assessment of the equipment, the operating procedures and guidelines for the equipment, the work environment and their potential contributions to the incident.

Services included an assessment of:

The prime mover
The drawn equipment
The operating procedures
Workplace Health and Safety procedures
Environmental conditions
Other mitigating circumstances

Workers engaged in different types of work and work environments face different hazards. For instance, an office worker is at much less risk from burns than a chef that works within the same block. While there are a range of common accidents and injuries which occur across all occupational sectors where slips, trips and falls invariably top the league, these types of injuries usually do not lead to serious injury or death.

While all workers who attend their respective places of work expect to be safe over the course of their service, inevitably, some types of work and/or work environments are far more hazardous than others and have the potential to harm. When such hazards result in environmental impact, near-misses, injuries or loss of lives, the engineering design of the equipment, defective or inadequate safety devices, work procedures and practices, maintenance lapses, skills and experience and human factors are often some of the more important considerations during the investigation. Ascribe Engineering personnel has extensive experience in expert investigative engineering assessments including: