Concrete pumping fatality. Do your inspections properly.

Concrete Pumping Fatality

– What went wrong on site?

Mujezinovic was using a truck‑mounted concrete placing boom to pour a slab at a St Albans construction site in May 2021 when the extended boom suddenly collapsed.

The boom struck him on the head and knocked him into the wet concrete; paramedics could only declare him deceased at the scene. A WorkSafe Victoria investigation found the collapse was caused by a metal‑fatigue crack in the king post inside the turret — a critical structural component of the boom.

– Inspections that look busy but miss the real risk

Prisbel Concrete Pumping Pty Ltd had daily and monthly operator checklists and yearly inspections by a “competent person” across its fleet. None of those inspections required stripping the pump down, so internal components like the king post were never actually seen, let alone tested.

An engineer told the inquest the fatigue cracking probably developed over several years and could have been detected months before the boom snapped – but only if someone had physically accessed the king post.

– Standards, “circular logic,” and a fatal gap

The pump was already 20 years old when Prisbel bought it in 2010. Under the 1994 Australian Standard, it should have had a major “strip‑down” inspection after six years’ service, with critical components dismantled for thorough checking.

But the 2019 update to the Standard only requires strip‑down disassembly if a competent person decides it’s necessary, effectively handing them broad discretion over whether the boom is ever opened up.

Coroner Audrey Jamieson said this creates “circular logic”: the king post can be cracking without any visible signs, yet disassembly is only ordered if an inspection shows outward signs of a problem. She stressed her criticism was aimed at the Standard, not the individual inspector, but concluded the current regime “may not be up to the task” of finding hidden structural faults before catastrophic failure.

– Coroner’s warning: other ticking time bombs

Jamieson found Mujezinovic’s death resulted from fatigue cracking through the king post over several years and said a proper strip‑down inspection could have identified the cracking and prevented the fatality. She raised concern that other concrete pumps in Victoria may have king posts quietly cracking with no outward signs, still operating over workers’ heads.

Prisbel Concrete Pumping Pty Ltd was later convicted and fined $50,000 plus costs for failing to provide or maintain safe plant under the OHS Act 2004 (Vic).

– Queensland shows a better way

The Coroner highlighted Queensland’s 2019 WHS Code of Practice: Concrete pumping, which flips the presumption – major inspections require disassembly by default, unless the certifying engineer gives a detailed justification for not stripping the equipment down.

She called the Queensland model “sensible” because it pushes toward more frequent inspection of critical internal components like king posts, instead of leaving them buried until they fail.

Jamieson recommended WorkSafe Victoria pursue stronger, State‑level inspection requirements for concrete placing equipment to plug the structural‑inspection gap exposed by this and a similar forklift‑fatality inquiry.

If your inspection regime never opens up the machine, it’s not a safety system; it’s a paperwork system waiting for the next coroner to show you where the cracks were.

RIP – Sanel Mujezinovic