A TRAGEDY DOWN UNDER

Every parent who has ever lost a son or daughter will know the intense anguish and pain it can bring, especially when their passing is due to the negligence of others. Patrizia Cassaniti is one such mother, who will never be able to hug her son again. The reaction to her loss, however, has served as a real inspiration to others as she continues to change the way we look upon safety in the workplace. This is her story

Apprentice Christopher Cassaniti couldn’t wait to get to his dream job in Sydney on a bright autumn morning in April of 2019. The popular apprentice had celebrated his 18th birthday just four days earlier. The world it seemed had many wonderful things lined up for a youngster many looked upon as a role model for his own generation. Within hours, Christopher was lying face down, struck by the scaffolding he was working beside as he formed up a planter box, at the Macquarie Park site in the city.

The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the heavy debris had been acting as a torniquet due to its weight. Even if rescuers could have got to him in time, when the weight had been lifted from his body Christopher would almost certainly have bled out. Medics confirmed death would have occurred within 20 minutes due to asphyxiation. In fact, an artery in his pelvis had been severed, such was the impact of the falling debris.

Another 39-year-old co-worker was also seriously injured in a collapse caused by the fact that all the ties had been removed and it was overloaded by 18 tonnes.

After Christopher’s accident the regulator SafeWork NSW went on an inspection spree calling it Operation Scaffsafe. They inspected more than 700 sites to check on scaffolds and found that 44% of them had components missing; 34% of the sites said it was because unlicensed workers had removed them.

It emerged the pair had worked through their lunch break to finish some extra work when the collapse happened. They had been working from the bottom level of scaffolding when the structure suddenly gave way. Another two workers were laying bricks at the top of the structure and were able to jump to safety.

Sadly, concerns were raised about the safety of the Ganellen construction site in Macquarie Park more than a year before Mr Cassaniti was killed. The company was eventually fined $900,000 for the worksite accident. In fact, numerous emails obtained by a local news programme revealed repeated safety warnings were made by scaffolding company Synergy to Ganellen.

The whole horrific episode left Christopher’s mother, Patrizia, and family in complete turmoil, left to manage the constant pain of losing someone so young, generally known as a shining light to everyone he encountered. Incidents like this can destroy the whole fabric of family life within minutes, turning personal worlds upside down and leaving a trail of emotional devastation in their wake as Christopher’s dad, Robert, explained: “Losing my son Christopher is like losing the whole right side of my body. Christopher was my right-hand man. Always there to help around the house, whether it was with the lawns, washing cars or general house duties.

“As a toddler, Christopher would follow me around the garden with a tool in his hand, just wanting to help me with whatever I was doing. Christopher had the biggest heart and a smile to match. People would always compliment us on what a good-natured and honest young man he was. After leaving school he got an apprenticeship with Future Form. Christopher loved his job, and his workmates loved him. They would often

quarrel about who Christopher would be assigned to for the day. He loved being part of a team, working, getting dirty and doing his bit as an employee.”

This was all contained in the official victim impact statement read out at court. In it Patrizia added: “As his mother, I have received a life sentence and must endure the excruciating pain of losing a child, but it is not just the loss, but the anger that envelops me because this incident should never have happened in the first place, all due to complacency and the rush to get the job done on time and on budget. Unfortunately, this is a recurring problem within the culture of the construction industry and things need to change.

“Christopher was loved by all his bosses, supervisors and workmates. He wanted to learn and loved his job. I had a mobile coffee van, so every morning Christopher and I would get up at 5am and we would go together to the Jobsite, where I would serve coffee and breakfast to the workers on-site. I worked on the Macquarie Park site prior to commencement of construction with Greenland and Ganellen, so all the workers already knew who I was. When my clients would come to me to buy their coffee and food, they would always comment on how amazing my beautiful son Christopher was. I was so proud of him.”

Driven on by the spirit of her son she quickly founded the Touched by Christopher Foundation, taking on a series of talks given to scaffolding companies and other related organisations.

She told me: “I have had to turn my immense anger into something positive, so I have now become a safety advocate and a keynote speaker so I can shift the workers’ complacency and hope that my personal message and Christopher’s tragedy, resonate with workers personally, and they take on more responsibility to always do their work safely. I hope I can give them the courage to say no to unsafe work practices, because no Australian should go to work and not come home safe.

“I’ve been extremely busy visiting job sites and speaking to workers. The impact has been enormous because the video I show of the incident that killed my son is pretty confronting and it’s like a slap in the face for some to wake up and realise some of the decisions they make on a daily basis can be detrimental. The complacent attitude of ‘She’ll be right, mate!’ and ‘I have done this a thousand times before,’ or ‘It won’t happen to me,’ must be eradicated from the workplace, especially around dangerous ones.

“The feedback has been great, and it keeps me going, I have many workers personally message me after my talk thanking me, because I make them realise that they need to make family the reason why they work safe every day. A lot of safety officers and project managers are gobsmacked after my talk as they see how I hold every worker’s attention because it’s personal and resonates with them. It’s something they can’t replicate, because I talk to them as mum; a mum who has lost a child at work in circumstances that were completely avoidable.

“A few scaffolding companies have aligned with me to have me on-site to talk to workers especially when they face daily manipulation of scaffold components, changing the integrity of the scaffold.”

Her goal is to make it compulsory for an anti-tampering device to be applied to all scaffolds so that workers cannot remove components.

“My next mission is to have industrial manslaughter introduced to NSW and hopefully in all states so tougher consequences and penalties can act as a deterrent to unsafe work practices, because without them why would a builder care?

“Look at the penalty the builder received from killing my son. It’s a category two offence carrying a $1.2 million fine which he pleaded guilty to. Because he pleaded guilty, he got an instant 25% discount reducing it to a measly $900k, which his insurance paid. All he got was a slap on the wrist.The builder is still out there putting lives at risk, and I am left with the life sentence.How much is your life worth? My son’s was priceless and there is nothing I can do to bring him back, but if I can save a life with what I do in his honour then I am happy.”

She is also ambassador of the Talk5 app, the world’s only safety tool that speaks and listens, in 28 different languages.

Patrizia added: “It has many other outstanding features, eg permit creation, a user wallet to store licenses and trade cards, and talk and text to report incidents within teams/groups or whole sites flagging hazards, etc.

“There is nothing in the world like it and with my construction background I know the risks and inefficiencies in the workplace and have built Talk 5 to address the gaps that no one has tackled.”

“Scaffshield is also a product I advocate and hope it becomes part of legislation. It’s an anti-tampering device so components from scaffold can’t beremoved.

“Imagining Christopher lying face down alive for 20

AS A TODDLER, CHRISTOPHER WOULD FOLLOW ME AROUND THE GARDEN WITH A TOOL IN HIS HAND, JUST WANTING TO HELP ME WITH WHATEVER I WAS DOING. CHRISTOPHER HAD THE BIGGEST HEART AND A SMILE TO MATCH. PEOPLE WOULD ALWAYS COMPLIMENT US ON WHAT A GOOD-NATURED AND HONEST YOUNG MAN HE WAS

minutes plays in my mind every single night as I try to go to sleep. I imagine he is screaming out to me, and I cannot be there. What a horrible death my son endured, suffocating and scared.

“Do you want to know what it is like to lose a child? I will just summarise otherwise this could take quite a while. At first, I am in shock, and then I am in denial, and pretty soon reality puts my emotions on trial. I lose so much, but the first thing I lose, is my smile. Every day I hold back tears because I know once I start it’s hard to stop. And when I do cry, I also want to scream, because Christopher mattered so much. I pray for a visit, or vision of him in the form of a dream so that I can see him again.

“People always say that he is in a better place, but for me Christopher’s hopes and dreams have been tossed away. To others I seem OK, but really, I am not. The grief I feel is only the start because Christopher now lives only in my heart. I treasure each picture, because that is all I have to cling to – memories I thought I forgot. I know my life will never be the same again. I pretend things are OK, and I hide my pain. Sometimes, I just want someone to mention his name, that way I can imagine that he is beside me again.”

In the light of Christopher’s accident, The New South Wales Government placed the industry on ‘notice’ after a safety blitz on more than 700 building sites by SafeWorkNSW.

SW Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation Kevin Anderson said: “It is clear that more needs to be done to get the safety message through to people, which is why the NSW Government will be rolling out a number of new initiatives aiming to protect workers from serious injury or death.”

At the end of each talk Patrizia’s heartfelt message is always: “If Christopher’s passing has touched you, your referral and help to spread my message in honour of him is the greatest compliment you could give me.

“If my talk has resonated with you and shiftedyour complacency, I would love for you to send me a testimonial.”

It’s a sad fact that sometimes things don’t improve until a tragedy has occurred and lives are taken from us. A charismatic young man may well have given his life to ensure an end to scaffolding and safety complacency across Australia. His family, far from crumbling, have found inner strength in the mission they hope will change the way the industry approaches the wellbeing of employees.

The pain will always be felt, but this is one mother and family determined to bring priceless good out of a personal nightmare. It also serves as a clear message to scaffolders right across the globe, there can be no compromise over the safety of anyone working on-site or, for that matter, anywhere else.

Patrizia Cassaniti, Founder and Director of the Touched by Christopher Foundation Keynote Speaker and Safety Advocate of Let’s talk about Safety Pty Ltd. Ambassador of the Talk5 app. patrizia@touchedbychristopher.org.au info@letstalkaboutsafety.com.au 0414 656 621