Being involved selling and marketing lifting, materials handling, safety, and personal protective equipment since 1988, my family had no idea what one day in October 2015 would do and mean to us.
In the early hours of Saturday, 10 October 2015, our family world in what we had all been a custom too, changed forever with one phone call.
The phone call that as parents, should never receive.
At 6.01am we received a phone call informing us that our 20 year old son, Luke, had been involved in a workplace incident and had been rushed to Westmead Hospital under police escort.
The company tasked Luke to move a B-Double Trailer from the loading dock into a storage yard.
In a split second, no one knew what exactly was to come?
Luke received multiple blunt force injuries after being crushed by the wheels of a “runaway” B-Double Trailer.
Later that morning, Luke lost his fight to live at Westmead Hospital.
The affects that something such as this has on a family can’t be explained. It is a feeling of emptiness and disbelief and you start saying to yourself, why me, why us.
When my wife and I were asked to join the Touched by Christopher Foundation, we both felt honoured with the chance to be part of a cause that was fighting for workplace safety and the safety of workers in industry.
I accepted the position of Secretary and my wife, a Committee Member.
In continuing the Cassaniti’s family legacy for Christopher, we can also continue our legacy for Luke through the foundation and share our experiences and more importantly, help to prevent workplace incidents as no parent, husband, wife, brother or sister should have to farewell a loved one.
“Going home to your family safe is a necessity NOT A PRIVILEGE.”
We must and will make a difference to safety in industry!
