Chesterfield Poultry Ltd fined £300,000 when lack of emergency stop cause loss of worker's thumb

Poultry processing company Chesterfield Poultry Ltd was fined £305,046 (inc. costs) for safety breaches after an agency worker had her thumb severed on a moving part of a processing line.

The circumstances were:

• The accident occurred on an overhead conveyor for transporting chicken bodies.
• There was no emergency stop by the injured person's work station.
• On 24 April 2017, the worker was rehanging chickens on a hook on the conveyor.
• One of the chicken's feet came out of the hook.
• The worker  went to insert the foot back into the hook.
• Her thumb got stuck, and she was pulled around with the conveyor.
• She was unable to stop the conveyor.
• Further around the line there was a fixed upright post attached to a drip tray.
• As she got to this point her thumb met the post and her thumb was traumatically severed.

The HSE inspector Tarn commented:
“The moving shackles passing the fixed pole – that supported the drip tray – created the danger zone that the worker was drawn into. Companies must ensure that measures are in place to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery and provide a means to stop machinery should an emergency happen.”