Abigroup management should carry the death of a 47-year-old man on their conscience after the company failed to install first aid equipment that could have saved him.

The man, who worked for a mulching contractor on the Hunter Expressway project, suffered a heart attack at work on Monday and died.

His death came after the company had ignored repeated calls from the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union to install defibrillators on the $1.4 billion road project.

Organiser Dave Curtain said the union had been campaigning for the past two months to force Abigroup to install the life-saving equipment and train up first aid staff.

“Abigroup knew the risk and they were willing to gamble on workers’ lives,” Curtain said.

 He said Abigroup had only recently and “begrudgingly” bought two, but the union had highlighted the need for more defibrillators and trained first aid staff pointed.

“This is a 28-kilometre long job with more than 200 workers on site. At the other end of the job, which is run by Theiss, there are a minimum of six defibrillators,” he said.

Curtain said he was shocked to find the defibrillators that had been purchased were effectively inaccessible as one was in the bosses’ compound and the other in the back of a 4WD.

He said less than 24 hours after the death, union officials had asked workers on site where the defibrillators were and they did not know.

“So we now have two defibrillators on a 28-kilometre long site and one is in the bosses’ compound and the other is in the back of a four-wheel drive and no one knows whose four-wheel-drive it is in.

“This just shows a complete disregard for workers’ lives – a man has died and Abigroup is still not learning the lesson,” Curtain said.

CFMEU NSW State Secretary Mal Tulloch said the presence of a defibrillator on work sites could mean the difference between life and death.

“State of the art equipment such as the Cardiac Responder system cost a little over $400 a month,” Tulloch said.

“Abigroup has just demonstrated it is happy to take on a $1.4 billion project from the Federal Government, but isn’t willing to fork out $400 a month.”

Fifty per cent of heart attacks come without warning and each minute of delay after someone has had cardiac arrest decreases survival rates by 10 per cent.

More information contact

Dave Curtain 0400 324 236

Dave Kelly 0423 807 849

Peter Harris 0417 061 967