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He also wouldn’t say whether Keunen received the same health and safety training that a regular employee would. Like all co-op students, Keunen spent the first two weeks of his co-op semester in a classroom, learning about safety procedures, before any training on site-specific risks and protocols at the job site.Ī manager at the auto recycler who declined to identify himself said he couldn’t comment on the circumstances of the accident. It’s unclear whether being covered by the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which requires that employees receive safety training and wear protective equipment, would have prevented Keunen’s death.ĭistrict School Board of Niagara spokesperson Kim Yielding said Keunen was the first student from the board to do a co-op placement at Plazek, but added that the employer had been vetted by a teacher who visited the site and interviewed the supervisor. In December, the Liberal government introduced legislation that would close the loophole, but when the legislature was dissolved in May for an election, the bill died before being passed into law.Ī new bill has now been tabled, but interns still aren’t covered almost a year after the loophole was first exposed. Last fall, a Star report revealed that co-op students and interns aren’t covered by workplace health and safety laws. Wayne Affleck was killed in the electrical room of a solar farm in Sunderland last December, and Aaron Murray, died in a car crash in April after an unpaid night shift working as a campus security guard at Trent University in Peterborough. Keunen was the third Ontario co-op student killed in the last 10 months. He mentored other students and looked forward to becoming a welder, until that dream was cut short.

“Tractors, trucks, large machinery - he wanted to know how it moved and how it worked.” “He loved being around anything with a motor,” said childhood friend Steven Killins. Many wore ball caps and camouflage in Adam’s memory.

The two boys played on the same hockey teams, worked on the farm and went hunting together.Īt Keunen’s visitation Tuesday night, hundreds of people lined up out the door and down the road, as more continued to arrive in pickup trucks. Keunen, a Grade 12 student at Beamsville District Secondary School, was inseparable from his twin brother, Brad. “He had only started his co-op, but he absolutely loved it.” “School wasn’t the most important thing - it was working with his hands that he loved,” said his uncle Elvin Petherick. But instead of gaining experience, one Niagara region high school student lost his life last week in an accident at an auto recycling plant.Īdam Keunen, 17, hadn’t even finished his first week at his co-op placement at Plazek Auto Recyclers in West Lincoln when he was crushed under a front-end loader on Friday. Co-op placements are a great way for students to stay focused and learn a trade.