Family of B.C. worker killed by falling pallets calls company's response 'too little, too late'

Karen Sherst says there's been a piece missing in her life since Dec. 7, 2022, when she found out her brother Bill Sherstobitoff was killed in Richmond, B.C., after a stack of pallets fell on him at work.

"Every day, I wake up thinking about him. Every night, I go to sleep thinking about him. I wake up multiple times through the night. I dream about him," Sherst told CBC News nearly two years later.

"I don't know for sure, but I think it might have been a little bit easier if he hadn't met such a terrible end," she added.

The family of the forklift operator says that the company Sherstobitoff worked for, the Great Little Box Company (GLBC), has not made enough of an effort to make things right in the two years since his death.

GLBC was fined over $290,000 by the provincial workplace regulator, WorkSafeBC, with the report finding a number of deficiencies in the company's risk assessment, supervision and pallet stacking practices, including a lack of supervision of product stacking and unstacking at the facility. 

The company told CBC News in a statement earlier this year when the report was made public that Sherstobitoff's death had a "profound impact" on the family and the organization, with the company's president saying it struggled to put his loss to words.

However, those closest to Sherstobitoff say that the company only reached out after Sherst sent a letter requesting an apology almost two years after the death. The family contacted CBC News after it included the company's statement in its story.

Sherst and Sherstobitoff's wife, Julia Thomas, said that an apology from the company would show that it was taking the onus on itself for the deficiencies that led to the death.

For Thomas, life has been like "walking around in fog" since Sherstobitoff's passing, especially as the operator was just weeks away from retirement when he died at 64.

"He would do anything for anyone. And he was so unselfish, and so responsible, and had such a good head on his shoulders," she told CBC News.

Sherst said that the only communication the family had received in the wake of Sherstobitoff's death was an invite to the company's Christmas party shortly after the incident, where GLBC said it would pay tribute to the forklift operator.

It was something Thomas said she was too shell-shocked to accept.

"I was just so angry. Just, all I kept thinking was, 'I want them to go under. I want them to go out of business,'" she said.

Sherst said that Sherstobitoff only stayed on at GLBC as a favour to the company despite raising safety concerns, and she has never heard from the company in the years since, despite sending it a letter earlier this year.

"They could have the decency to apologize and say, 'We were wrong. We should have been safer. We should have done this or that, and we're very sorry. We are responsible for this,'" Sherst said.

Report found numerous deficiencies

GLBC handles packaging for a wide range of industries, from beauty to manufacturing to food and beverage. 

On Dec. 7, 2022, the WorkSafeBC report into the death states that Sherstobitoff was called to the lunchroom for a conversation with a GLBC logistics manager.

At the time, he was taking down a row of six loaded pallets of boxes that reached over six metres high.

After talking with the manager, Sherstobitoff stopped to speak to another forklift operator.  Before he could reach his vehicle on the way back, a bundle of two pallets — which weighed around 340 kilograms — fell on him. 

According to the report, there were at least six documented incidents, including one where a fallen pallet "clipped" a forklift operator within the three years prior to the worker's death in 2022. 

It also stated that the supervision of product stacking and unstacking at the facility was not adequately provided, and there was no appropriate training documentation regarding stacking and unstacking loaded pallets.

'We are responsible for what occurred'

CBC News reached out to the company for a response to this story over the course of multiple weeks, but it did not provide one after numerous requests.

However, in a letter addressed to Thomas and provided by the family to CBC News last month, company president Brad Tindall said that the day that Sherstobitoff died was "unquestionably the worst day of our lives."

"I only share this with you in the hope that if you have any doubt of our taking ownership, we take full ownership of everything found in the WorkSafeBC report," the letter reads. 

"Every accident is preventable, and as the leaders of the company, we are responsible for what occurred at our workplace."

Tindall said that the company continued to work through its workers' grief and desire to honour Sherstobitoff and offered Thomas a chance to "be part of these discussions."

Sherst, however, said she wasn't accepting the apology, and it was "too little, too late."

She said that the company should instead donate $300,000 to the B.C. Transplant Society in Sherstobitoff's name.