EXCLUSIVE
A tradesman has been awarded $1million in compensation after he was blinded in one eye when a hose smacked him in the face while emptying a stormwater drain.
Leigh Bilson, 47, was working for Vatsonic Contracting Services on a job for Townsville City Council, in north-east Queensland, when he was injured on August 28, 2017.
Mr Bilson had been with the company for nine months and was operating a vacuum truck to help council workers suck water out of a pit so they could clear silt from the drain.
But during the process, the 11.5m hose ‘violently’ escaped his hands and flew upwards, striking him on the bridge of his nose and rupturing his left eye.
Mr Bilson launched legal action against Vatsonic PTY LTD and Townsville City Council, arguing his employer failed to provide a duty of care.
He claimed his injury arose from the council workers ignoring his instructions about how to handle the hose during the draining process.
In April, Townsville District Court Judge John Coker ruled in Mr Bilson’s favour, ordering Vatsonic – which he found to be 70 per cent liable for the incident – to pay $359.689.
The judge also found Townsville Council 30 per cent responsible for the incident, but ruled it should not have to pay compensation because it was indemnified from damages under its contract with Vatsonic.
The council launched a bizarre appeal against that decision – claiming it should have not been found liable at all – but lost, and has now been ordered to pay $590,801.
And under the revised decision released this week, Mr Bilson has now been awarded a total of $950,490.
According to the court documents, Mr Bilson was employed by Vatsonic as a vacuum truck operator in June 2016 and was taken out by another employee on his first day to be shown how the truck worked.
The truck had a large tank on the back of it with two connection valves – an inlet the hose connected to for suction purposes and an outlet for draining the tank.
At the time of the accident, Mr Bilson was on the sixth day of a work job cleaning out 4.2metre deep stormwater pit at Burdell, in the city’s north west.
He was working alongside three council workers, equipped with a crane, who were tasked with lifting and remove the hose from the drain.
Mr Bilson’s job was to unfurl the hose in preparation for draining, to empty the tank, and to switch the hose between the two connection valves as required.
Each time the tank had filled with water, the hose needed to be removed from pit and laid flat on the ground to enable Mr Bilson to unlatch the hose on his end and move it back to the inlet valve to repeat the process.
According to Mr Bilson’s evidence in court, he had advised the council workers about this requirement and the group had been using this ‘informal operating system’ to successfully fill and empty the tank ‘eight to ten times a day’.
However, on the day of the accident, Mr Bilson went to unhook the hose from the outlet valve, but the pipe experienced a burst of energy.
‘It [the hose] was a little bit tight. I gave it a little wiggle and it flung out of my hand, did a 180 in the air and came down onto the bridge of my nose and my eye,’ Mr Bilson told the court.
Mr Bilson told the court he called his boss and wife to tell them what happened, and saw the other end of the hose was in the crane hanging about four metres in the air, dangling over the pit.
Judge Coker ruled that Vatsonic had breached its duty of care by failing to undertake a risk assessment and prepare a safe work method statement, outlining the safe operating procedure to not only Mr Bilson but also the council workers.
He found the incident was ultimately caused by the council workers failing to follow Mr Bilson’s instructions, but said that would not have happened had Vatsonic prepared a safety plan.
Judge Coker described Mr Bilson as an ‘impressive’ and ‘stoic’ man, who has ‘gotten on with his life’ after the incident.
He found the injury had prevented Mr Bilson from seeking a higher-paying job in the mining industry, but otherwise his injury has not interfered with his ‘family and social life’.
‘To all intents and purposes, [he] has no vision in his left eye, except, as he described it, [being] able to see a faint shadow if there is a bright light,’ the court documents read.
‘Mr Bilson suffered a rupture of his left eye, traumatic loss of the iris and traumatic loss of the lens. There is a risk he will develop sympathetic ophthalmia, which may threaten the sight of his right eye, although the risk is low.
‘[He] also described suffering burning and throbbing in the left eye, leading to headaches which he treats with over the counter medication.
‘Whilst there is no possibility of restoring sight, Mr Bilson’s treating specialist has identified a number of potential future surgical treatments for ”palliation of pain”.’
The initial ruling was also appealed by Mr Bilson and Vatsonic – who argued Judge Coker erred in not ordering the council to pay damages.
Vatsonic further appealed that the council should have been apportioned 100 per blame for the accident – but their claim was dismissed.
The appeal court ordered that Vatsonic and the council could negotiate on how much of the total costs they each should pay, with parties given seven days to provide further submissions.