Solarframe Limited fined £35,346 after worker was crushed by falling material during forklift truck operations

UPVC manufacturer Solarframe Limited was fined £35,346 (inc.costs) after a worker was crushed under falling materials during forklift truck operations.

The circumstances were.

• On 19 July 2017, a forklift truck (FLT) was being used in activities to catalogue and sort UPVC materials that were stored on long metal stillages in the yard.
• Solarframe had failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment.
• Therefore there was no identification of the risk of lifting equipment making contact with other items located nearby.
• There were insufficient measures to segregate pedestrians from moving vehicles at the site.
• The FLT in use was too large for the planned activity. 
• The stillages were stacked on top of one another on top of a wheeled dolly.
• The height of the stillages was too great, which presented a danger of them becoming unbalanced.
• The FLT was being used to pull out the dollies and stacks and lift each individual stillage down so the contents could be inspected and tidied.
• The FLT driver began to restack the completed stillages onto a pile on the dolly, when the tips of the FLT forks protruded beyond the dolly and caught underneath the stillages stacked behind it. 
• The stillages became unbalanced and fell on to a 56-year-old worker who was in the yard looking for materials.
• He sustained a double broken pelvis, a broken and dislocated left arm, broken ribs left and right side, punctured lung, broken scapula, double broken clavicle, double fractured jaw, fractured cheekbone which involved the eye socket, and two trapped vertebrae in the back of his neck. 
• He was kept in an induced coma for three weeks following the incident.

The HSE inspector said:
“The worker’s injuries were life changing and he could have easily been killed. This serious incident could so easily have been avoided if basic safeguards had been put in place. Assessing the risks involved in work activities allows businesses to foresee what might occur.  It is then straightforward to implement simple control measures and safe working practices.”