Arthur Bertelli was 23 years old. Vincent Dequin, 33. Interim rope access technicians, they died of suffocation in a sugar silo of the Cristal Union cooperative group in Bazancourt (Marne), March 13, 2012. The Reims Court of Appeal confirmed, Wednesday November 24, the judgment which , at first instance, had recognized the company, as a legal person, its director, Michel Mangion, and its subcontractor Carrard Services, guilty of homicides and unintentional injuries by the manifestly deliberate violation of a safety obligation or of caution. She denies it for the head of establishment of Carrard Services, of which it is not clearly established that he had received a delegation of power from his regional director.
In its judgment, of which The world has taken note, the Court of Appeal therefore considers that there is a “Certain causal link between the breaches of legal and regulatory provisions and the death of the two victims and the injuries of the third [Frédéric Soulier] “.
“Severely flawed” emergency plan
On March 13, 2012, a team of six rope access technicians employed by Carrard Services, including three temporary workers (the two victims and the injured), must clean the silo no 4, the largest of the Bazancourt sugar refinery: a capacity of 25,000 tonnes, 24 meters in circumference, 53 meters high.
The labor code provides that before any operation of this type, the heads of the two companies, the one requesting the intervention, and the one intervening, proceed ” in common “ to an analysis of the risks, and decide on the plan to prevent them. From where their common condemnation whereas they referred the responsibility to the hearing.
This prevention plan has been well developed. But he was, the court notes, “Seriously deficient”. First, because it was based on a situation that did not correspond to the one that the rope access technicians discovered that morning. And that it has not been amended accordingly.
When they arrive, the sugar level in the silo is higher than expected. He passed a side door, 7 meters high, which had to be opened for safety. While all were prepared for an operation of clipping and scraping the sugar stuck to the walls, with rope access workers in suspension, the mission entrusted to them from the outset is to clear this door. To do this, they descend from the top of the silo, and work resting on the sugar. While the prevention plan took into account a risk of falling, rope access technicians then mainly run a risk of burial.
You have 43.72% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.