Guilty ship repair company and its supervisor gets sentenced over an underwater incident in 2014, reports The Straits Times.
About the incident
The victim got sucked into the ship’s pipe opening while working at bow thrusters underwater.
What happened?
The incident occurred at the Eastern Working Anchorage, near Marina South Pier, on June 4, 2014.
Underwater Contractors were handling the underwater survey works on vessel Frisia Kiel.
Mr Kwok was one of six divers working at the ship’s bow thrusters. While at work, he was seen being sucked into a pipe opening in the vessel.
Rescue attempts
Other divers made several attempts to pull him away from the opening but failed. He was retrieved only after the pump in the starboard sea chest was shut down. The pump is meant to suck in seawater to cool the ship’s engines and generators.
Found dead
Mr Kwok was motionless, and paramedics pronounced him dead at around 7.40pm that day.
He was later found to have died of traumatic asphyxia.
The verdict
The company and its supervisor, David Ng Wei Li, 37, had each been found guilty of an offence under the Workplace Safety and Health Act in February this year, following a trial.
Supervisor
The assistant diving supervisor of a ship repair company was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail yesterday over an underwater incident in 2014 which led to the death of a diver.
Company
The company, Underwater Contractors, was sentenced to a $300,000 fine over the incident, during which diver Kwok Khee Khoon was killed after he was sucked into a ship’s pipe opening.
What went wrong?
Safe procedure submitted
Ministry of Manpower prosecutors Delvinder Singh and Shanty Priya had argued that the safest way to perform the diving works would have been to completely shut down the pumps in the sea chest that the divers were to work in.
Pumps kept operating
This was not done in the incident – the pumps were kept operating at “reduced flow” instead.
Divers instructed to work
The prosecutors had also said Ng had instructed the divers to perform the work despite knowing that there was a risk of them being sucked into the sea chest.
Plans to appeal
Mr Alfred Lim and Ms Jaime Lye, lawyers for both the company and Ng, said their clients are intending to appeal against both their convictions and sentences.
For their respective offences, the company could have been fined up to $500,000, while Ng could have been jailed for up to two years and fined up to $30,000.
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Source: The Straits Times
