Was hit by dumpers • Tells about the grief and missing: “Not sunk in yet”
A few months before the fatal accident, Nova had taken the student from the vehicle and transport program in Vemdalen. The job as a truck driver was her dream job, and Nova had only worked for a week when she was hit by the dumper. Big sister Mikaela doesn’t remember much of November evening 2023 when her dad called and asked her to come home. When Mikaela stepped inside the door of her parents, they didn’t have to say much.
– I realized what had happened. After that, I don’t remember anything, she says.
The sisters Nova and Mikaela had a close relationship, they were often spent and when they did not, they had each other on the phone. Mikaela describes her little sister as an incredibly kind person who liked everything and everyone. But Nova was also determined.
– She had a mood. We used to call her “little my”, kind but determined.
The Big Sister about the preliminary investigation: “Waited a lot of anger in me”
The work accident was investigated by the Swedish Work Environment Authority and the police – which was a long wait for Nova’s family. The company she was employed by had the family only contacted once, when they would send home Nova’s things.
– We haven’t known anything. What we have learned about what happened up there we have found out through newspapers, says Mikaela.
In the end, there was no trial. At the end of December 2024, the prosecutor decided on a so -called criminal offense, as the employer and the driver of the dumper assumed responsibility for the fatal accident. When Mikaela read the preliminary investigation, she gained a little more understanding of how it had gone, but far from answers to all questions.
– It aroused a lot of anger in me. The company has not thought about, and there have been many shortcomings in the work.
The driver and the employer guilty of crime
According to the prosecutor, the driver and the employer had committed a crime through negligence. The driver received conditional judgment and daily fines for negligence until another’s death, and the employer received SEK 2 million in corporate fine for work environment crimes. The cure accrues to the state, and the family receives no damages. Something that upsets Mikaela.
– I have been home from work for half a year and have not been able to work.
Work environment crimes are prioritized: “devastating for relatives”
Over the past 10 years, an average of about 48 deadly workplace accidents a year in Sweden has occurred. 2023, the year when Nova died, was a record -breaking year – when 63 people died at work.
Graphics over workplace accidents with fatal outcome in Sweden.
Graphics over workplace accidents with fatal outcome in Sweden.
Journalist Elinor Torp has long examined deficiencies in the Swedish work environment. She describes work environment crimes as a down priority crime type, and sees major problems that they rarely lead to neither trial nor a convict.
– It is devastating with such long waiting time for the relatives to get answers to what really happened, she says.
Mikaela has a hard time putting words into the missing after her little sister, and she still has a hard time taking in that Nova is no more.
“Not even today, actually, it hasn’t dropped yet,” she says.