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This article was published on September 16th, 2015
A manufacturing company has been fined a total of £50,000 for serious safety breaches after an employee was badly injured when he became trapped in a machine.
The HSE decided to prosecute after one of the company’s employees was trapped in heavy machinery for over a minute causing serious injuries including damage to his kidneys, spleen and lungs.
The Crown Court heard how the worker’s upper body was trapped for over a minute before being freed by colleagues after he attempted to remove some debris from the machine. He was taken to hospital, spending three days in intensive care and as a result of the accident he lost the function of one of his kidneys.
The HSE found that the manufacturing company had already identified a risk relating to this particular type of machine in another area but had failed to implement the safety measures across the board.
The HSE found the company guilty of breaching Regulation 11 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and Regulation 3 (1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and advised the court that if they had implemented the safety measure across all the machines and not just some that the employee’s life-changing injuries could have been prevented.
The company was fined £20,000 for each breach and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £10,033.
An HSE Inspector said:
“If a suitable and sufficient risk assessment had been completed the necessary control measures could have been implemented to prevent the accident from occurring.”
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