A Northland avocado orchard has been ordered to pay a trainee worker $62,185 after he suffered permanent damage when a high-tensile wire snapped and struck him in the eye.
The 20-year-old trainee and his supervisor were repairing the fence at the Mapua Avocados orchard in Houhora, 41km north of Kaitaia, when the high-tensile fencing wire snapped, leaving the young man requiring two surgeries and with permanent vision loss.
Neither the casual worker nor his supervisor were wearing protective eyewear and the worker reported seeing multiple supervisors not wearing personal protective equipment [PPE] while fencing.
Mapua Avocados was investigated by WorkSafe over the April 2021 incident and reported a number of failures, including a similar incident just one month earlier that had gone unreported.