{"id":80105,"date":"2026-08-25T12:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/80105\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T12:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T12:16:20","slug":"gym-safety-auditor-calls-for-improvements-after-man-crushed-while-weightlifting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/80105\/","title":{"rendered":"Gym safety auditor calls for improvements after man crushed while weightlifting"},"content":{"rendered":"

An incident that left a man crushed by weightlifting equipment on the Gold Coast has sparked calls to mandate safety equipment in Australian gyms.<\/p>\n

Paramedics were called to a Broadbeach gym at about 8am on Friday and took a man in his 50s to Gold Coast University Hospital with life-threatening neck injuries.<\/p>\n

He is now in a stable condition, according to Queensland Health.<\/p>\n

Queensland Work Health and Safety said it was not investigating the incident. The gym has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Phil Bellinger says safety can be improved at gyms. (ABC News: Steve Keen)<\/p>\n

Griffith University sports scientist Phil Bellinger said such incidents could be prevented by making safety racks mandatory for lifting equipment, particularly as many gyms moved to a 24\/7 model with unstaffed hours.<\/p>\n

The racks allow adjustable bars to be set at different heights to catch a barbell if gym-goers fail a lift.<\/p>\n

Dr Bellinger said the “relatively simple precaution” of using a buddy or a spotter would also improve safety.<\/p>\n

“Where problems tend to occur is when people may progress too quickly or push loads that are maybe a little bit too heavy for them,” he said.\"A<\/p>\n

Experts say there needs to be better screening at gyms. (Pexels: Victor Freitas)<\/p>\n

He said gyms also needed to properly screen and educate clients.<\/p>\n

“In a lot of gyms, there’s not a huge barrier in terms of someone walking in off the street that doesn’t have a lot of experience and then being able to access that gym out of staffed hours,” he said.<\/p>\n

Concern about 24\/7 gym model<\/p>\n

The Gold Coast incident comes almost a decade after a 15-year-old boy died in hospital<\/a> after he was crushed at a Brisbane gym while trying to bench press about 100 kilograms.<\/p>\n

Ben Shaw was found by a staff member at the Pine Rivers PCYC gym pinned to a bench after the weightlifting accident occurred.<\/p>\n

It was not clear how long he was trapped.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Selwyn Becker is concerned about the move towards a 24\/7 model at gyms. (ABC News: John Gunn)<\/p>\n

FitSafe Australia founder Selwyn Becker has more than 30 years of experience in auditing gyms across the country.<\/p>\n

He said while safety measures such as CCTV and panic buttons could help during unstaffed hours, they were not enough.<\/p>\n

“When I first started in the industry, there was gym instructors on the gym floor all the time,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I feel like that should come back.”\"Man<\/p>\n

Experts say gyms need to be proactive with safety precautions. (Pexels: William Choquette)<\/p>\n

Mr Becker, who has previously worked as a trainer, said he would discourage people bench pressing on their own.<\/p>\n

“There’s always that risk of it falling on your chest or even higher up onto your neck and that’s not good,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said gyms needed to be proactive with safety precautions, including regular equipment maintenance and independent safety reviews.<\/p>\n

“Prevention is always better than investigating what went wrong after the fact,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An incident that left a man crushed by weightlifting equipment on the Gold Coast has sparked calls to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[59208,22,21,33418,36520,29490,33821,968,23932,124603],"class_list":["post-80105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-24-7","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-crushed","tag-equipment","tag-gym","tag-man","tag-safety","tag-staffing","tag-weightlifting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}