British engineering firm, Point Engineering (Hull) Ltd was sentenced recently for safety breaches after a marine hatch and frame weighting more than 500 kilograms fell forward seriously injuring an employee and narrowly missing another person.
The injured person was preparing the marine hatch for inspection and used a sling and overhead crane to move it to a vertical position so that the hinge could be stamped with an approval mark by a surveyor who was with him.
The marine door fell onto Richard Blake, 63, a welder and fabricator at the company, trapping his pelvis and legs; the surveyor, who was approximately one meter away from him, narrowly escaped injury when the hatch and frame grazed the toe of his safety boot.
Blake suffered a shattered pelvis and broken hip when the accident happened in February 2014. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted the firm over the incident.
Point Engineering (Hull) Ltd of Lee Smith Street, Hull, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 3(1) (a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and was fined more than $39,000 with $32,000 costs at Hull Crown Court.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Sarah Lee commented: “If the job had been correctly planned and risk assessed then a safe way of doing the job could have been established. Sadly it was not, which lead to Mr. Blake suffering from these terrible injuries.”
Author Kori Shafer-Stack, Editor, Amaxx Risk Solutions, Inc. is an expert in post-injury response procedures and part of the Amaxx team helping companies reduce their workers compensation costs by 20% to 50%. www.reduceyourworkerscomp.com. Contact: [email protected].
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