EXCLUSIVE
A tradesman has been awarded $1 million in damages after he was blinded in one eye when a hose hit him in the face while emptying a storm drain.
Leigh Bilson, 47, was working for Vatsonic Contracting Services on a job for Townsville City Council, north-east Queensland, when he was injured on August 28, 2017.
Mr. Bilson worked for the company for nine months, operating a vacuum truck to help municipal workers suck water from a well so they could remove sludge from the drain.
But during the process, the 11.5-metre-long snake ‘forcibly’ escaped from his hands and flew upwards, landing on the bridge of his nose and rupturing his left eye.
Mr Bilson brought legal action against Vatsonic PTY LTD and Townsville City Council, alleging that his employer had failed in its duty of care.
He claimed his injury occurred when council workers ignored his instructions on how to handle the hose while draining it.
In April, Townsville District Court Judge John Coker ruled in Bilson’s favour and ordered Vatsonic, which was 70 percent liable for the incident, to pay $359,689.
Leigh Bilson, 47, (pictured) was left blind in one eye after a workplace accident in 2017
The judge found that Townsville City Council was 30 percent responsible for the incident, but ruled that the council did not have to pay damages because the council was indemnified under its contract with Vatsonic.
The council bizarrely appealed that decision. According to the council, the council should not have been held liable at all. But the council lost and now has to pay $590,801.
And according to the revised decision released this week, Mr. Bilson has been awarded a total of $950,490.
Court documents show that Mr Bilson was employed by Vatsonic as a vacuum truck driver in June 2016. On his first day, he was taken along by another employee to show him how the truck worked.
The truck had a large tank at the rear with two connection valves: an inlet to which a hose was connected for drawing in water and an outlet to drain the tank.
At the time of the accident, Mr Bilson was on his sixth day of work cleaning a 4.2m deep rainwater tank in Burdell, in the north-west of the city.
He worked with three city workers equipped with a crane, whose job it was to lift the hose and remove it from the drain.
Mr Bilson’s job was to unroll the hose in preparation for draining, empty the tank and, if necessary, change the hose between the two connecting valves.
Each time the tank was filled with water, the hose had to be removed from the well and laid flat on the ground so that Mr. Bilson could detach the hose from his end and return it to the inlet valve to repeat the process.
Pictured: One of Vatsonic Contracting Services’ vacuum trucks
According to Mr Bilson’s court statement, he had informed council officials of this requirement and the group had used this “informal operational system” to successfully fill and empty the tank “eight to ten times a day”.
On the day of the accident, Mr. Bilson tried to disconnect the hose from the exhaust valve, but an energy surge occurred in the line.
‘It [the hose] “It was a little tight. I kind of wiggled it and it flew out of my hand, did a 180 in the air and hit 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 had happened, and saw the other end of the hose hanging from the tap, about four metres in the air, above the well.
Judge Coker ruled that Vatsonic had breached its duty of care by failing to carry out a risk assessment and to prepare a safe working practice statement setting out safe working practices not only to Mr Bilson but also to council staff.
He concluded that the incident was ultimately caused by council staff failing to follow Mr Bilson’s instructions, but said that this would not have happened if Vatsonic had put a safety plan in place.
Judge Coker described Mr Bilson as an “impressive” and “stoic” man, who has “moved on with his life” since the incident.
Pictured: A similar drainage procedure performed by Vatsonic on an unrelated job in 2018
He concluded that the injury had prevented Mr Bilson from seeking better-paid employment in the mining sector, but that the injury had had no further impact on his ‘family and social life’.
‘In all respects, [he] has no vision in his left eye, except, as he described it, [being] “In bright light you can see a faint shadow,” the court documents state.
‘Mr. Bilson suffered a fracture of his left eye, traumatic loss of the iris and traumatic loss of the lens. There is a risk that he will develop sympathetic ophthalmia, which could threaten the vision in his right eye. However, this risk is low.
‘[He] He also described having a burning and throbbing sensation in his left eye, which led to headaches, which he treated with over-the-counter medications.
“Although vision cannot be restored, Mr. Bilson’s treating specialist has identified a number of possible surgical treatments for pain management in the future.”
Mr Bilson and Mr Vatsonic also appealed the original ruling, arguing that Judge Coker had wrongly decided not to order the council to pay damages.
Vatsonic appealed further, claiming that the council should have been awarded 100 per person at fault for the accident. However, their claim was rejected.
The Court of Appeal ruled that Vatsonic and the council could negotiate the amount of total costs they would each have to pay. The parties were given seven days to file additional documents.