A Stuart Island-based firm was one of 47 companies penalized this year for unsafe work practices.
D.E.R. Resorts Ltd. was fined by WorkSafe BC on March 8 for an incident that occurred in Campbell River, according to the most recent edition of WorkSafe Magazine.
The family business was fined $8,540.20 after a worker sustained serious head injuries as a result of falling out of the back of a pick-up truck, said the WorkSafe report. She had been riding unrestrained in the open box.
“The firm failed to provide safe procedures or supervision and training for transporting workers and materials,” the magazine reads.
Tammy Ritchie, manager of D.E.R. Resorts, said the company won’t be appealing WorkSafe’s penalty for an incident she said happened three years ago.
“It’s not worth fighting, we just accepted it,” she said. “Since then we’ve updated our policies.”
Ritchie said the private resort, which has a fishing lodge attached and is located on the family’s personal property, had never had any incidents before.
“We never had an issue before in 25 years of operation and had never been visited by WorkSafe,” Ritchie said. “We have very few employees and didn’t realize we didn’t meet the criteria in the past.”
Ritchie said the company had eight or nine employees which move around from a number of different businesses the Ritchie family owns.
The woman injured in the incident is okay but not fully recovered, Ritchie said. Stuart Island, where the company’s lodge is located, lies east of Campbell River and next to Sonora Island – part of the Discovery Islands between Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast.
