Correct Safety Precautions Not Follwed Leading to Leg Amputation : Fine for Hazardous Waste Firm in Essex as Man Loses Leg Under Excavator Tracks
An Essex, UK based hazardous waste firm has been fined after a worker was crushed beneath a tracked excavator at a sorting and recycling site causing the loss of his leg.
On 7 February 2014 the worker was processing wood waste at a site operated by Cohart Asbestos Disposal Ltd at Archers Field in Basildon, the court heard.
A subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the company had failed to ensure effective communications between the operator of the excavator and persons working in the yard.
The HSE explained that a company director had been operating a 360o tracked excavator, which he was using to transfer waste from a main pile to an adjacent manual-sorting area.
The injured worker moved behind the excavator to pick up an old door and place it in a skip. As he did so, the operator reversed the excavator, crushing the worker beneath one of the tracks. He sustained serious crush injuries to his right leg which later required amputation in hospital.
Blind Spot
A visibility assessment on the excavator by HSE investigators also revealed that the operator would have been affected by a ‘blind spot’ of up to eight metres directly behind the vehicle.
Further, the excavator’s reversing alarm and beacon were said to not be working, a mirror was missing from the side of the cab and there was no camera or mirror on the rear of the vehicle.
Cohart Asbestos Disposal was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay costs of £5674 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
“Potentially fatal risks arise from operating heavy plant on waste sites, particularly if, as in this case, the vehicle operator’s visibility is restricted,” commented HSE Inspector Edward Crick. “This worker suffered life-changing injuries after the company failed to put in place effective measures to protect pedestrian workers from its heavy plant operations.
“Every year many people are killed or seriously injured in incidents involving workplace transport, and there is no excuse for employers to neglect this risk,” he continued. “Pedestrians, whether employees or others, should be kept separate from workplace vehicle movements by using physical barriers or safe systems of work that are clear and well supervised.”
More information about working safely around workplace vehicles is available HERE
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