‘Physically in my chest, I felt a hole’
Grieving mother shares her pain, anger over son’s death on construction site in 2021, blames company for hiring him in elevated role, failing to dissuade working in bad weather
Patricia Allen told a court Tuesday that months after her son’s death in a construction-site accident, her grandson asked to borrow her cellphone during a ride in the car.
“He said he wanted to call Heaven so he could speak to his dad,” she said tearfully, reading from her victim-impact statement during her late son’s employer’s sentencing hearing.
New View Designs by Laurie Cole Inc. and its owner, Cole, appeared in Fredericton provincial court Tuesday for sentencing on a charge under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, laid by WorkSafe New Brunswick, the province’s workplace-safety watchdog agency.
The business pleaded guilty last month to failing to provide safety instructions to protect an employee’s health and safety Dec. 6, 2021.
The offence stemmed from the death of New View Designs employee Preston Allen at the site of a new home under construction in Fredericton. He was 34.