A Dryden-based tire service company has been fined $55,000 following a workplace incident that left an employee with life-threatening injuries after a tire exploded during repairs at a logging site near Atikokan.
K.K. Penner Tire Centers Inc. had sent a worker to a forestry operation on Segwick Road on July 16, 2024, to fix two damaged skidder tires. The tires had already been removed from the heavy logging vehicle before the repair work began.
According to Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, the worker was inflating a tire after installing an inner tube when the wheel assembly suddenly exploded, causing critical injuries. Investigators later found the employee had been positioned within the hazardous trajectory zone of the wheel assembly during inflation.
The ministry concluded the company failed to establish safe servicing procedures for skidder wheel assemblies, a precaution considered necessary to protect workers during tire inflation.
K.K. Penner Tire Centers Inc. pleaded guilty in Dryden’s Provincial Offences Court on April 30. Justice of the Peace Lorelei Lindell Van Belleghem presided over the case, while Dan Phelan acted as Crown counsel.
In addition to the fine, the court ordered a mandatory 25 per cent victim fine surcharge under the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge supports a provincial fund that provides assistance to victims of crime.