Employee crushed by collapsing steel coils
Page 16
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ABC (Grimsby) fined £25,000 following ‘avoidable’ death of worker killed while stacking row of 1-tonne coils
by Roger Brown
ABC (GRIMSBY) has been fined £25,000 after an employee was killed when a row of steel coils “collapsed like dominoes”, trapping him under their 5-tonne weight.
In a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution, Grimsby Crown Court was told that forklift truck driver Alan Burr, 52, was crushed when he tried to repair some torn packaging on a roll of coil at the firm’s warehouse in Henderson Quay, Immingham Docks, in January 2010.
He had been stacking the narrow banded coils on rolls in batches of four or five, with a gap between each coil. Each coil measured five feet in diameter and weighed about a tonne.
As Burr was standing between two of the rolls to repair the damaged wrapping, one of them toppled, causing a domino effect to the stack, and trapping him underneath. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The court was told the death could have been avoided if sufficient instruction, training and the provision of inexpensive coil racks – which work on the same simple principle as a toast rack – had been provided by the company.
An HSE investigation found that the method used by Burr to store the coils was a common one that had been used by others.
No one from the company had instructed the employees not to do it this way.
ABC, authorised to run 30 vehicles and 52 trailers, pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
As well as the fine the firm was also ordered to pay £20,000 costs.
HSE inspector Denise Fotheringham says: “This was a shocking tragedy and has been devastating for Mr Burr’s wife and family.
“Mr Burr had worked for ABC for more than 20 years; he was simply trying to do a good job and repair a tear in the polythene wrapping, but it had these dreadful consequences.
“Narrow banded coils can be unstable when stored on roll end, as they can collapse in a domino effect and that, very sadly, is exactly what happened.
“ABC had been storing this type of steel coil since April 2009, but had given no training to employees about how to handle and store them safely.” Nobody from ABC was available for comment as CM went to press.