A construction firm has been fined £34,000 after a worker was struck by a falling hydraulic breaker, leading to the amputation of his right leg below the knee.
Sheffield Magistrates’ Court heard that, on 4 February 2019, groundworkers, including the injured person, were breaking out ground on a site in Rotherham using a 13t 360 excavator with a hydraulic breaker attached to an automatic quick hitch.
The workers were digging a trench as part of work to install new drainage of the site at Arconic Forging and Extrusions, Sheffield Road, Ickles, Rotherham. The breaker became detached from the quick hitch on the excavator. The breaker fell, narrowly missing one ground worker, and landed on the injured worker’s right foot. He sustained injuries which led to amputation of his right leg below the knee.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the company failed to ensure that a safe method of work was in place when working in the vicinity of an excavator, there was no defined segregation between people and plant, and no use of a vehicle plant marshal to ensure the machine was isolated before pedestrians entered the working zone of the excavator.
The company also failed to implement a dedicated bucket changing area for the changing of attachments to minimise the risk of attachments falling onto pedestrians.
Hovington Ltd of Chichester Street, Rochdale, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company has been fined £34,000 and ordered to pay £1,935.84 in costs.
HSE inspector Trisha Elvy said: “This incident could have easily resulted in a fatality and could have been avoided by simply carrying out correct control measures and safe working practices.
“There should be suitable, defined safe systems of work so that persons who need to work in close proximity to excavators can do so safely.”
Comments
Comments are closed.
Why exactly did the breaker become detached from the excavator quick-hitch?
Although the prominent UK plant operator card schemes (NOCN-CPCS & NPORS) place emphasis on the working tasks of an excavator (REMOVE AND RE-ATTACH BUCKETS) within the learning outcomes for any training they do not include the installation/removal of breakers/impact hammers or identify them as “Safety-critical.”
As with many of the HSE follow-ups on dangerous occurrences/near misses they fail to look at current training & assessment criteria for plant operators and miss golden opportunities to demand any necessary changes.