A man has received serious leg injuries and needed to be freed with hydraulic rescue tools after being trapped in a machine during the ACT government's $6.8 million public housing demolition on Northbourne Avenue.
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The worker was injured in a skid-steer loader about 12.30pm on Wednesday at the Northbourne Flats' Turner site, in what the ACT's work safety watchdog described as a serious incident.
Emergency services transported the man in a stable condition to Canberra Hospital for treatment after freeing him from the machine.
WorkSafe ACT is investigating the injury on Condamine Street, where the territory government is pulling down the decades-old former public housing flats.
The watchdog has made an order stopping the site of the incident from being disturbed, and prohibiting workers from using the loader.
Queanbeyan-based company AGH Demolition and Asbestos Removal is contracted to demolish the buildings, the Northbourne Flats, as the ACT government prepares the land for redevelopment.
Demolition started at the sites in Turner and Braddon in September, and is expected to finish in March.
The ACT government previously announced AGH Demolition and Asbestos Removal would demolish the buildings first by removing hazardous materials, including asbestos, and then removing walls and internal structures floor by floor. It said the contractor would finish the demolition using equipment positioned at ground level.
The demolition is part of the Commonwealth government's asset recycling program, from which the territory is expected to reap $79 million from asset sales and $11 million in incentive payments in 2016-17.
The flats were built in the 1950s in response to high demand for housing for public servants in Canberra but fell into disrepair in recent times.
