Firm fined £10,000 over tipper injury
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by Koger brow..
SWINDON CIVIL engineering company John O'Flynn Developments has been fined £10,000 after one of its workers was seriously injured by a reversing tipper truck at a building site.
In a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution, Cheltenham Magistrates' Court was told how the groundworker, who does not wish to be identified, was struck from behind by the vehicle as it delivered aggregates to a development off Tommy Taylor's Lane, Cheltenham, in August 2012.
The man suffered serious injuries to his left leg, including a severed artery, a severely damaged thigh muscle and a large puncture wound.
He was airlifted to hospital, and was unable to work for seven weeks.
The injured worker was using a noisy floor saw to cut a channel in a roadway when he was struck; however, the road should have been closed to site traffic, or vehicle movements closely supervised and monitored, to ensure there was no risk. An HSE investigation found the company had failed to put adequate safety measures in
place to prevent the incident, and not enough was done to segregate workers on the ground from moving vehicles.
The firm was ordered to pay a further £3,892 costs after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
After the hearing, HSE inspector James said: "There were no measures in place to safely segregate workers from vehicles, and as the worker had his back to the reversing vehicle as he used a noisy floor saw, he did not see or hear it approach."