Cumbria Crystal fined £15,000 for loss of finger

Lead crystal manufacturer Cumbria Crystal was fined £15,000 after an employee suffered a serious hand injury while using machinery.
The circumstances were:

• Cumbria Crystal have a pillar drill which can be used for reaming the neck of a glass bottle.
• No risk assessment had been carried out.
• As a consequence, no reasonably practical control measures were in place.
• There were no control measures to prevent accessing dangerous parts of the machine.
• On 20 February 2015, Laura Ponsford was using the drill to widen (or ream) the neck of a glass bottle. 
• The chuck and reamer were unguarded.  
• Mrs Ponsford was wearing latex gloves while performing this task.
• The glove on her right hand became entangled within the rotating parts of the reamer resulting in the middle finger of her hand being severed.
• She underwent 10 hours of surgery to reattach the finger but unfortunately she was later told the operation had not been successful and had to undergo a further operation in March 2015 to have the finger surgically amputated to below the second knuckle.

The HSE inspector said:
“This incident could have been prevented simply by providing guarding to prevent access to dangerous parts of the machine. The need to guard dangerous parts of machinery is well known with established industry guidance available, and in this case, the result of that guidance being ignored is a serious injury to a young woman.”