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Council fined £40k for subbie’s crush injuries

16th August 2012, Page 13
16th August 2012
Page 13
Page 13, 16th August 2012 — Council fined £40k for subbie’s crush injuries
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Dumfries and Galloway Council was fined after a subcontractor suffered severe crush injuries

By Roger Brown

A COUNCIL IN Scotland has been ined £40,000 after a subcontractor suffered severe crush injuries when a tar tipper lorry reversed into a paver machine he was driving while carrying out road repairs.

In a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution, Dumfries Sheriff Court heard how the 20-year-old – who does not wish to be named – was one of two subcontractors working for Hamilton Tarmac alongside a squad of men from Dumfries and Galloway Council to undertake repairs on a minor road between the villages of Rhonehouse and Tongland in April 2010.

The injured worker was driving the paver forwards along the road followed by a reversing tipper truck driven by a council employee.

From his position in the cab of the tipper, the reversing driver could not see the carriageway behind the lorry where the paver was positioned.

As the paver reached the low point of a dip in the road, its speed was reduced as it started to climb the incline.

The subcontractor noticed the tipper lorry was gaining on his slower moving vehicle but before he could sound his horn to alert the tipper lorry driver to his presence, it struck the paver.

The lorry hit the operator safety rail to the rear of the paver, buckling it and moving it forward over the platform on which the subcontractor had been standing, trapping him between the rail and a control panel.

Around the same time as the vehicles collided, the subcontractor sounded the horn of the paver, alerting the tipper driver who applied the brakes of his vehicle.

Unfortunately, in his panic attempting to move the tipper forward to disengage it from the paver, he damaged the prop shaft of his vehicle thus rendering it immobile.

This prevented the subcontractor being rescued, trapping him on his vehicle and in considerable pain until a ire appliance arrived to pull the tipper lorry free.

The injured worker, who suffered fractures to his pelvis and spine, bruising to a kidney, internal bleeding and nerve damage, underwent surgery to repair the fractures to his pelvis and still suffers from lower back pain.

He returned to work, where he remains on light duties, 15 months after the incident.

An HSE investigation discovered that there was a risk caused by the tipper lorry reversing a considerable distance along a narrow road with limited visibility.

Inspectors also found the tipper lorry wasn’t itted with adequate reversing aids in the form of cameras.

A risk assessment by the council had picked up on both of these issues and, while it identiied the need for reversing aids in the form of cameras and audible reversing alarms, most of the vehicles in the leet did not have cameras installed.

Dumfries and Galloway Council pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety At Work Act 1974.

A preventable issue

This incident was foreseeable and could easily have been prevented. The council had identified the risks involved in reversing vehicles but had failed to implement the findings of its risk assessment.


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