Hollingsworth says after she was done speaking, Dan Lyons, the man who’d invited her to speak stood to say something. But after a moment of struggling to speak, he suggested a ten minute break for everyone.

“He told me he will never ever forget this,” says Hollingsworth.

She says one of the biggest frustrations she has with the situation is that people always want to know what kind of machine it was or where Mouse was working. For her, it doesn’t matter where it happened or what he was doing. The same lesson can be applied to all industries.

But she says that when she shares it was an industrial farming incident, many act as though that makes the situation non-applicable. Though Mouse died because he wanted to hitch a ride on a manure spreader, the situation is still the same in other industries. There was no walk around, no knowledge of where everyone was, and there was complacency on the worksite.

In 2011, farmers and ranch workers were still exempted from the Labour Code. There were no requirements for safety and they were not covered under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In fact, when OH&S found out that his death was from a farming accident, they said there was nothing they could do.

“At that time there was no farm safety. None. Zero,” says Hollingsworth.

According to a blog written by Jennifer Koshan of the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, a study done by the Alberta Federation of Labour in 2017 showed “agricultural workers are more than twice as likely to be killed on the job as other workers in Alberta, and 4,000 work related injuries occur on Alberta farms each year.”

It wasn’t until Bill 6 was brought in by the Alberta Government in 2016 that things began to change for the farming industry. Now employers are required to have safety practices and are expected to meet the Alberta Occupation Health and Safety Act requirements for their industry.

“Bill 6 also brought farm and ranch workers who are paid, non-family members into the basic health and safety protections under the Occupational Health and Safety Act as of January 1, 2016. Farm and ranch employers are now obliged to ensure the health and safety of their workers, and the workers are able to refuse unsafe work that presents an imminent danger. OHS officers are authorized to inspect farm and ranch workplaces to ensure that that work is not being carried out in a manner that is unhealthy or unsafe, and serious injuries and accidents on farm and ranch work sites must be reported and investigated,” says Koshan’s article.

After the accident, Hollingsworth and Mouse’s dad Marvin Stewart spoke with the young man who’d been working the manure spreader that day. She says she felt awful for him because he was thousands of miles away from home. “He couldn’t even get a hug from his mom,” she says.

They made it clear to him that Mouse should never have been on the back of the spreader. They told him that Mouse knew better, and that he shouldn’t blame himself for what happened.

“I don’t want another mom to hear these words, ‘Your child has died due to safety reasons,’” she says. “I never want another mother to get a call from her kid saying he just killed someone at work.” 

While it’s too late to help Mouse, Hollingsworth says she hopes she can spread the message far and wide. She is already slated to speak at two safety meetings at All Choice Rentals and hopes she has the opportunity to do more.