American Iron & Metal pleads guilty in 2022 Saint John scrapyard death of Darrell Richards

American Iron and Metal has pleaded guilty in connection with the death of a worker at its Saint John scrapyard in 2022, and to an unrelated safety charge stemming from an incident at the Point Lepreau nuclear plant in 2021.

The company was scheduled to go to trial on both charges in March, but during a pre-trial conference in Saint John Friday, Crown prosecutor Wes McIntosh advised provincial court Judge Claude Haché the parties had reached an agreement.

AIM was facing four charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act in the death of Darrell Richards, 60.

Richards, a married father of three, died in hospital on July 1, 2022, after being injured at the west side scrapyard the day before while cutting into a calender roll with a circular saw.

Calender rolls are used in paper production, said McIntosh. They're constructed of a metal shaft covered with approximately 250,000 sheets of cotton denim. The sheets are locked in place and under 2,600 tons of pressure. The rolls are 33 inches in diameter and weigh tens of thousands of pounds, he said.

When Richards straddled the calender roll and cut into it to strip the material from the metal shaft, "approximately 37,050 pounds of material under at least 1,500 tons of pressure released with enough force to send pieces of material several feet in the air and disperse across the job site," said McIntosh.

The release caused a deep laceration to Richards' groin area, severing his femoral artery and causing severe blood loss.

Employees responded quickly and provided first aid and emergency crews arrived soon after, but Richards succumbed to his injuries at 2:05 a.m., said McIntosh, as several of the roughly 20 relatives and friends who filled the front rows of the courtroom cried quietly.

The calendar roll came from an AIM facility in Maine, which was "aware of the hazards associated with dismantling calendar rolls and had developed their own procedures," including using a cutting torch, using a demolition shear excavator attachment, and setting a 70 foot-safety zone, excluding anyone not actively involved in commissioning the roll, according to McIntosh.

"AIM N.B. had no experience dismantling calendar rolls and were unaware of the danger associated with them," he said.

AIM changed its plea to guilty on one count — failing to take every reasonable precaution to ensure the health and safety of Richards by failing to provide him with information on the hazards of a calender roll.

The Crown plans to withdraw the other three charges at sentencing, McIntosh said. These include failing to properly protect and train Richards, and failing to make sure work was overseen by trained supervisors.

"We're very glad that today has come, that it is finally over, that AIM has taken accountability and that they did not make it go to trial," Richards' daughter-in-law Kelsey Bailey told CBC outside the courthouse.

"Of course nothing can bring Darrell back, but we are glad to have some type of closure."