Manufacturing company Siddall and Hilton Products Ltd was fined £20,831 (inc.costs)for safety breaches after a worker suffered severe crush injuries while fault finding on a mesh welding machine.
The circumstances were:
- The accident occurred when fault-finding on a welding machine.
- There were no robust isolation procedures as part of a safe system of work for entry into and out of the machine’s hazard zones.
- To identify a faulty wire on the machine, the worker opened the interlocked gate which stopped the machine.
- He then climbed on top of the PV (the part of the machine that creates the mesh from the welded materials).
- To release the wire the weld head needed to be lifted.
- To do so, his colleague restarted the machine.
- As the machine was in automatic rather than manual mode, the PV immediately continued travelling towards the weld head, trapping the worker’s lower left leg.
- He suffered double compound fractures of his tibia and fibula.
- He was taken immediately to hospital where he had surgery and has since required further surgery to fuse his ankle in November 2018
The HSE inspector said:
“Maintenance and breakdowns are often the most hazardous and poorly controlled area of work. If a suitable safe system of work had been in place prior to the incident, the life changing injuries sustained by the employee could have been prevented. Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards.”
No comments:
Post a Comment