‘Suspicious’ bloody helmet turns out to be rigged evidence at industrial accident site

(123rf)

South Korean prosecutors said Wednesday they recently discovered that an official of a maintenance company had placed a blood-covered safety helmet at the site of an industrial accident in a bid to hide the fact that an employee of the company had been working without proper safety gear.

The suspect, a midlevel manager of the company charged with management of an apartment complex in Gyeonggi Province, had been accused of death by negligence in the incident that took place in July of 2022. The employee in question was repairing pipes at the apartment when the ladder he was using broke, causing the worker to fall and sustain a fatal head injury.

As police initially pressed death by negligence charges on the suspect and the head of the company, prosecutors grew suspicious over a hard hat thought to be worn by the victim that only had blood on the outside, despite the victim having sustained severe injuries to the head.

A subsequent investigation discovered that the victim did not wear the hard hat or any safety gear when the accident occurred, and the manager in question placed it on the site after covering it with the victim's blood. The manager was found to have worked with the head of the residents' group of the apartment, in an attempt to obscure the truth about the accident.

Officials also found that the victim had sustained a prior injury after falling from a ladder while working in 2020, but the company faked documents to make it appear as if the accident had never occurred.

Both the manager and the residents' group chief were indicted for violating the Occupational Safety and Health Act -- regarding the lack of a safety helmet -- and the manager additionally faces initial charges related to death by negligence.

The maintenance company and its chief were also indicted for violating the Serious Accident Punishment Act. The act stipulates that in the case of severe industrial accidents, the victim's employer is to be held responsible and can be punished by at least one year in prison.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)