Gym safety auditor calls for mandatory equipment after weightlifting injury

On a Friday morning in Broadbeach, a man in his fifties was pinned beneath weightlifting equipment, sustaining injuries grave enough to threaten his life — a moment that speaks to a quiet tension running through modern fitness culture. The rise of unstaffed, 24-hour gyms has widened the space between access and accountability, allowing inexperienced lifters to encounter serious equipment without guidance or safeguard. Safety experts have long known what basic precautions could prevent such harm; the harder question is why those precautions remain optional. This incident, echoing a fatal 2016 c