SMRT Trains was charged in court yesterday (8 February) for an incident in 2018, where a worker had to have his foot amputated after a train rolled over his foot.
A representative from SMRT Trains showed up to face the charge of failing to take necessary measures to ensure the safety and health of their workers, under the Workplace Safety and Health Act.
The company is being accused of failing to carry out a risk assessment and put in place safe work procedures for their “limited movement procedure”.
SMRT Trains is also being accused of failing to implement the needed control measures and perform safe work procedures to mitigate the risks that were involved in the operations, and also failing to provide equipment such as walkie-talkies and other related communications devices.
They are expected to return to court on 8 March.
Recovered and still working for SMRT Trains
According to The Straits Times, the president of SMRT Trains Lam Sheau Kai, said that the worker has since recovered from his injuries and is still working for them.
He said that he (the worker) returned to work in the SMRT engineering trains workshop facility after his recovery and has since assimilated well into his new role in the locomotive component overhaul team.
Lam added that he cannot comment on the case because it is a court matter.
What happened
The fateful incident took place in December 2018 and happened on the eastbound track near Joo Koon MRT station.
A brake test on a maintenance train was being conducted by a maintenance team of 6 persons, which involved the “limited movement of the maintenance train”.
The worker was inspecting for oil leaks from the maintenance train because it will affect the safety of the train operations in the day (the test was conducted before service hours).
The brake test was then stopped after the injured worker was spotted by one of the team members lying down on the track.
They then provided first aid to him, after he had his right foot rolled over by the maintenance train, and the SCDF were then called and the worker was conveyed to the hospital.
He ended up having the lower part of his right leg amputated, and a “safety timeout” was then put in place following the incident.