Families of two Gabriola Island men who died a year ago after a boom on a concrete pumping truck broke off during a home-construction project have filed lawsuits in B.C. Supreme Court.
Friends Christopher Straw, 62, and Marc Dore, 59, were working as concrete placement crew for the contractor on March 16. The job was to build a new house for Straw’s family.
About 10 minutes after concrete pouring started, the boom came down on the two men, according to lawsuits filed in Vancouver.
Margy Gilmour, who was married to Straw, and her family, and Huguette Grenier-Dore, who was married to Dore, have filed notices of claim against M & K Ready Mix Inc., doing business as Bedrock Redi-Mix Ltd., Tripac Engineering Ltd., Alliance Concrete Pumps Inc. and JunJin Heavy Industry Co. Ltd.
The statements said the concrete truck’s boom and turning column had been damaged in November 2020, but the damaged area had not been replaced. Instead, it was welded to repair it.
The boom failed at or near the location of the weld, plaintiff statements said.
Concrete company M & K Redi Mix owns the truck. Alliance is an authorized supplier of concrete pumps made by JunJin, of South Korea. Tripac Engineering is an engineering inspection and testing company.
Bedrock hired Alliance to repair the damaged truck. Tripac inspected it and certified the repair, court documents say.
Faron Parlee, manager of Bedrock, said Thursday that because the matter is before the courts, it would not be appropriate to comment.
Alliance said it was not commenting. Representatives of Tripac and JunJin could not immediately be reached.
Plaintiffs are claiming negligence. They said the turning column failed due to “inadequate fracture toughness, damage caused to it in the prior incident and the inadequate weld repair.”
Both Gilmour and Jules Molloy, Straw’s son-in-law, were at the site when the accident happened. Molloy tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Straw, Gilmour’s statement of claim said.
Grenier-Dore, who was also at the scene, also attempted to resuscitate her husband.
Damages sought include general and special damages, damages in trust for family members or partners who provided care and health-care costs. The amounts were not stated.
“Two cherished family men died violent horrific deaths in front of their loved ones. We believe this tragedy happened because of a sequence of poor decisions as outlined in the WorksafeBC report,” the families said in a statement released by their lawyer this week.
The families say they will apply pressure on regulatory bodies to increase the enforcement of standards and regulations in the concrete-pumping industry.
Claims have not been proven in court.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
