The president of the board and three employees of a company based in Ourém are facing charges related to construction rule violations, facility damage, and disruption of services, aggravated by a fatality.
During the first session of the trial, the company manager stated that after being informed of the accident on July 5, 2017, he went to the site and confirmed that the company had allocated all necessary resources for the proper execution of the works.
At the same event, the then site director clarified that at the time of the accident, they were removing strutting panels used to support the soil, not installing them as accused by the Public Prosecution (MP).
The defendant further explained that the worker entered the trench to hook the machine’s shovel chains to the strutting panel located at the bottom, which had already been backfilled, stating that at that time, the trench was about 1.30 meters deep.
The other two defendants, the site foreman and a health and safety officer, chose to remain silent.
The MP’s accusation notes that the worker descended to the bottom of a trench approximately three meters deep to unhook the chains attached to a placement strutting panel when the unshored soil from the trench sides collapsed on top of him, partially burying him up to the thorax area.
The worker was also struck by a fragment of asphalt that disintegrated from the road surface, sustaining various injuries that led to his death.
The MP claims that the worker’s death was a direct result of the trench not being fully shored to ground level at the moment he entered and the absence of a hygiene and safety plan to prevent specific burial risks related to the task he was performing.
