Coroner's inquest into 2015 death of Georgina man following accident at Vaughan job site begins May 30

Jake Gordon, 24, died after being electrocuted while working as part of a crew operating a hydrovac truck at a construction site on Hwy. 7 in Thornhill

Yorkregion.com
April 29, 2022
Heidi Riedner

A Coroner's inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death of 24-year-old Jake Gordon of Georgina in 2015 is scheduled to begin next month.

Gordon died in hospital Nov. 24, 2015 after being electrocuted on a job site in Thornhill.

According to a Ministry of Labour investigation, Gordon was electrocuted when a truck's boom came in contact with live overhead electrical lines at a K-Line construction project on the north side of Hwy. 7, east of Dufferin Street, in Thornhill.

PGC Services Inc., a Gormley company that provides hydro vacuum excavation to the construction and utilities industries, and K-Line Maintenance and Construction Limited, a Stouffville company that provides services for overhead distribution lines, were fined a total of $285,000 in a Newmarket court Feb. 15, 2018.

PGC pleaded guilty to violating the Occupational Health and Safety Act for failing to ensure no object was brought closer than three metres to the overhead electrical lines, the ministry said. K-Line, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to failing to ensure a designated signaller was in place to warn the operator each time any part of the vehicle or equipment approached three metres of the electrical lines.

Following guilty pleas, K-Line was fined $160,000 and PGC was fined $125,000.

The inquest, which is expected to to last five days and hear from approximately eight witnesses, will start at 10 a.m. on Monday, May 30 at the Forensic Services and Coroners Complex In Toronto.

At its conclusion, the jury may make recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths.