10% OFF Our Online Training Course!
This month, we are shining a spotlight on the hazard of Plant & Machinery movement. It is important to ensure the movement of your equipment on site is conducted safely and correctly, as it can be fatal if not. A key way to do this is to ensure transport hazards and the risks they present are identified and assessed. Removing hazards and reducing and controlling risks is essential. A risk assessment should be conducted for all transport activities including: vehicle arrival and departure, loading and unloading, movement around site, and maintenance works. As a result, to help you feel more confident in completing risks assessments for your plant, we are offering 10% OFF our RoSPA Accredited Risk Assessment Online Training Course for this month only! Take advantage of the code ‘Risk19’ before the end of the month to keep your site, equipment and most importantly, your workers, safe!
Steelwork Company Fined £1.8M After Deadly Explosion
The steelwork company Celsa has been fined a hefty £1.8 million after an explosion at their Cardiff plant in November 2015 killed two men. After an investigation was completed by the HSE, Celsa pleaded guilty to failing to make a risk assessment before the blast, that resulted in the deaths of Peter O’Brien, 51 and Mark Sim, 41 as well as injuring five others. The root cause of the incident was a safety mechanism that failed to shut down a heater which got too hot and then exploded. Judge Neil Bidder said Spanish-owned firm Celsa had “failed to ensure” the machinery was safe, adding: “The company failed to make suitable and sufficient assessment of risks. A huge explosion occurred, bursting into pieces the large metal accumulator. Photographs of the scene shown to me are reminiscent of a bomb site.” As a result, Celsa was ordered to pay the £1.8m within six months, plus £145,771.85 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge.
Read more on the case from SHPOnline HERE.
Worker Killed by Falling Mast During Maintenance and Repair Work
On 13th May 2017, a worker suffered fatal injuries in Scotland when he was struck on the body by a centering machine lifting mast. On this day, James Brownlie was carrying out maintenance and repair work on a dry sided conveyor at the site in West Calder, part of which ran under a machine known as a centering machine. The centering machine was not isolated at the time and part of Mr Brownlie’s body interrupted the path of the light beam between the sensor’s emitter and reflector. This caused the machine’s lifting mast to activate and descend, striking him on the body and causing internal injuries from which he died a short time later. An investigation by the HSE found that Cemex UK Operations Limited failed to ensure the centering machine was isolated prior to the maintenance and repair work being carried out on the conveyor. As a result, Cemex UK Operations Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) and Section 33 (1) (a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act etc 1974 and was fined £1,000,000.
Read more on the case from the HSE HERE.
Center Parcs Under Investigation After Raft Flip
Center Parcs is under investigation after a family who rode their popular water ride, Tropical Cyclone, were injured. A man, his niece and nephew were on the ride when their raft overturned. “We went into thin air and that’s why we flipped,” the customer said. “The thing that I really remember was the cracking sound of my ribs hitting the side of the flume.”The man was taken to hospital with suspected broken ribs, while both children suffered minor head injuries. There have been 23 reports of rafts overturning on the Tropical Cyclone in the last six months, across the four Center Parcs villages that have the ride – Longleat Forest, Elveden Forest, Sherwood Forest and Woburn Forest – according to Center Parcs figures. Additionally, last year saw a £250,000 fine for the holiday firm for health and safety breaches after a girl broke her wrist falling from a tree at their holiday village in Woburn, Bedfordshire.
Read more on the case from the BBC HERE.
Company Fined After Trainee Worker’s Finger Severed in Rip Saw
The company Masher Brothers Limited has been fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £8005.44 in costs after one of their employees suffered life-changing injuries to their right hand. On 20th February 2018, the 20-year-old worker and his colleague were using the rip saw to split lengths of timber; one of the two pushed the timber onto the saw, and the other pulled it from the other side. As he was feeding the wood into the machine, the saw pulled his hand in with the wood, causing a severe laceration to his right hand. The injured person lost the first finger on his right hand, and part of his thumb. He lost function in this hand and cannot straighten his remaining fingers. A HSE investigation found that there were no risk assessments or method statements in place nor adequate protection or training provided either. Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Sarah Whittle said: “No safe system of work existed at the time of the incident. Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in the safe system of working.”
Read more on the case from the HSE HERE.