Profile Patterns Limited, a carpet sample book manufacturer, was fined £24,435 (inc. costs) after two workers were seriously injured in an incident where a forklift truck crashed into an onsite refuse skip.
The circumstances were:
- The accident occurred during the emptying of bins using a forklift truck.
- Profile Patterns Limited did not take effective measures to ensure the health and safety of employees in relation to the risks arising from the use and operation of forklift trucks.
- They failed to implement a safe system of work
- They failed to provide adequate instruction and training to employees.
- The method used for tipping bins into the skip placed employees at significant risk
- The method was normal working practice that had taken place over a considerable length of time.
- On 29 July 2019, three workers were emptying waste from plastic bins.
- They were using a forklift truck to raise the bins to a height.
- Then a worker at either side of the truck manually tipped the bins into a skip.
- One of the bins became trapped between the side of the skip and the forks.
- The driver of the forklift truck climbed on top of the skip to free the bin whilst the other two employees remained standing at either side of the forklift truck.
- Another employee was asked to reverse the forklift truck to aid the release of the bin.
- After reversing, the forklift truck then moved forward.
- It crashed into the skip causing the employee on top of the skip to fall.
- One of the workers standing at the side of the truck became impaled by her right arm by the fork.
- The two workers sustained serious fractures that required hospital treatment.
The HSE inspector said:
“The risk of injury from this unsafe working practice was foreseeable and the incident could so easily have been avoided. Profile Patterns Limited should have put in place a number of safety measures including appropriate segregation of vehicles and pedestrians and a safe system of work for emptying the bins. Those in control of work also have a responsibility to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in order to carry out work safely.”
