A mechanic has been fined $500,000 after his teenage apprentice was crushed to death while working alone on a truck.
KML Auto Electrics, which operates in Dubbo in regional NSW, was ordered to pay the hefty fine almost three years after Darby Paxton, 18, was killed.
However the garage’s early guilty plea saw the fine reduced by 25 per cent, to $375,000.
The mechanic must also pay the prosecutor’s costs of $32,600, leaving him to shell out a total of $407,600.
Darby had just started his first year working as an apprentice auto electrician at the garage and only had 18 days of experience when the horrific incident unfolded in January 2020.
He had previously done work experience with KML Auto Electric’s Kurt Michael Lew for two weeks in his final year of high school.
The mechanic was fined $500,000 after his teen apprentice was crushed to death while working alone on a truck
Darby and mechanic Mr Lew were undertaking electrical repair work on a 2021 Izuzu tilt cab truck.
The court found Mr Lew had raised the truck appropriately but did not manually install the lock pin that would’ve kept the cab in a raised position.
The truck was raised on its cab tilt stay system but the court found the lock pin had not been pushed into the stay arm to prevent it from folding.
Mr Lew and Darby were working on the truck when the mechanic was called to fix a truck that had broken down 40 minutes away from the garage.
Mr Lew told Darby to finish bolting the lights on the trailer before leaving to attend to the call-out.
Darby was working beneath the truck’s raised cab when he accidentally brushed the lever, causing the vehicle to fall on top of him and crush him beneath it.
Mr Lew discovered Darby stuck under the truck when he returned to the garage and called for help when a worker from a nearby business came over.
The pair managed to retrieve Darby from underneath the truck and emergency services called.
Paramedics were unable to revive him at the scene.
Mr Lew discovered the body stuck under the truck when he returned to the garage and called for help when a worker from a nearby business came over
KML Auto Electrics was taken to the NSW District Court by SafeWork NSW and sentenced on Friday.
Court documents revealed the death of the young apprentice had taken a heavy emotional toll on his family.
‘The heartache that Darby’s family endures is unending, unrepentant and devastating,’ Judge Wendy Strathdee said in her judgement.
‘The family now cannot get together to celebrate any milestone event as the absence of Darby makes it unbearable. Their grief is oppressive.’
His mother Karen Paxton has been unable to continue working as a nurse because of the trauma.
His dad is ‘tortured’ by not being with his son when he died.
His younger sister also described her ongoing grief in her victim impact statement.
‘I am and forever will be traumatised by having my brother taken away from me,’ she said.
Judge Strathdee gave her condolences to the family in the court.
‘Having had the honour of hearing the statements of Darby’s family, it is evident that Darby was a loved, adored and integral part of his family,’ she said.
‘It was impossible for those who heard the statements to be unmoved. The grief they feel is acute and their devastation seems endless. I convey my deepest sympathy to Darby’s father, mother and sister, and hope that they may, at some time, find some softening of their suffering.’
KML Auto Electrics, which operates in Dubbo in regional NSW, has been ordered to pay the amount following the death of Darby Paxton (pictured)