FDS (Cambridge) Ltd fined £27,354 after member of public was crushed on their site

FDS (Cambridge) Ltd fined £27,354 (inc.costs) after member of public was crushed on their site.

The circumstances were:

• The accident occurred on 30 January 2020 at the company’s site near Ely.
• There was no method of preventing members of the public being able to get onto the site unchallenged.
• There was no method of preventing them from parking near an operating machine
• There were no barriers, etc., or suitable arrangements in place to ensure that the machine had ceased operating whilst people were in the vicinity.
• An FDS employee was moving and processing a stockpile of concrete and brick rubble using an excavator.
• A member of the public then came onto the site in a vehicle.
• He was removing building waste from his trailer.
• He became trapped against the trailer by the reversing excavator, sustaining multiple fractures to both of their legs.

The HSE inspector said: “This was a tragic and wholly avoidable incident, caused by the failure of the host company to implement safe systems of work, considering the breadth of their operations, including, and especially, those which involved visitors to its site. This risk was further amplified by the company’s failure to undertake a number of simple safety measures including the segregation of vehicles and pedestrians.”