SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — Spokane County is appealing a $2,100 fine from the Washington Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) after a volunteer was injured while directing traffic at a memorial in August.
L&I fined the county $2,100 for a violation listed as “serious.” Department spokesperson Frank Ameduri said the designation was given because the violation “could have led to severe permanent disability or death for a worker.”
Fines are calculated based on multiple criteria, such as gravity of the hazard, good faith of the employer, the number of employees and whether it was a repeat violation, Ameduri added.
“This fine was relatively small, compared to some others, but the violation was serious,” he wrote in a statement to KREM.
Steve Bartel, director of Spokane County Risk Management, said a volunteer through the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office program SCOPE was providing traffic control services during a memorial on Aug. 29, 2019 for a fallen deputy who died in 2003 while responding to a crash.
A report on the fine from L&I says the volunteer engaged in flagging and traffic control was allowed to direct traffic in the middle of a four-way intersection when he was struck by an automobile.
L&I fined the county because flaggers should stand “in a conspicuous place on the shoulder of the road,” never stepping into traffic, the report said. The county also should have provided enough flaggers on each corner to ensure a safe flow of traffic around the road closure, according to the state.
The volunteer waved a pickup truck with a trailer behind it through as he stood in the intersection and turned away from traffic, Bartel said. The trailer then hit him, causing the volunteer to fall and scrape his head.
“It wasn’t appropriate for him to be in the roadway,” Bartel added.
Bartel said the volunteer was taken to the hospital for a head injury, where he was kept for observation.
“Any time an employee or volunteer that’s covered under worker’s comp is hospitalized, we have mandatory reporting under L&I, and that’s really what instigated the investigation in the first place,” he said, adding that all of the volunteer’s medical bills were covered under Spokane County Workers' Compensation.
Bartel acknowledged the sheriff’s office could have handled the situation differently, saying that four volunteers should have been assigned to control each leg of traffic at the four-way intersection.
He told KREM on Wednesday, though, that the county has appealed the citation. The correction date from L&I was originally listed as Jan. 22, but Bartel said he requested an extension of time earlier this month and that the correction date has been extended to Feb. 21, 2020.
In the letter requesting an extension, Bartel said he cited the need to rewrite training curriculum and the suspension of any planned traffic control events until it is completed and an authorized list of flaggers is created.
“I wanted to make sure that the bigger picture was that we were completely rewriting the training curriculum…and we were requiring that they retrain all of their people,” Bartel said.
Bartel said another reason for the county’s appeal lies in the citation itself.
“They [L&I] cited under a general, overall ‘you have to provide a safe workplace for your employees’ Washington code. They identified traffic control volunteers as actual flaggers, but it seemed they were using a lateral standard and applying it to these types of positions that just provided coverage under a construction zone,” he explained.
