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March/April 2023 issue

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Work at height
Construction
News

Apprentice burned by blowing power line

Open-access content Thursday 23rd June 2016
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

Rodd McFarlane, 20, was carrying out repairs at Waulkmill Cottage in Perth and erected a tower scaffold for repointing work.

On 2 August 2012, McFarlane was on the scaffold when a gust of wind blew one of the 240v electricity power lines supplying the cottage. It brushed against his back and he instinctively turned and grabbed the live wire.

The current made him unable to let go for a few seconds. He sustained burns to both hands, requiring graft surgery and a possible future amputation of one of his little fingers.

The Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) investigation found there was no safe system of work in place.

At Perth Sheriff Court, T&M Stonemasonry pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act and was fined £16,000.

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©REX/Shutterstock

 BT engineers' ladder falls may have followed electric shocks

Tuesday 31st May 2016
Teesside Crown Court heard how the two BT Openreach engineers were working at the company’s Darlington Automatic Telephone Exchange. One of the engineers was installing a cable in a ceiling level cable tray to the main distribution frame – which connects equipment to cables – on the ground floor.  The engineer was standing on a stepladder reaching up to the cable tray which ran beside the lighting system. He fell off the ladder and was taken to hospital with serious head and back injuries.
Open-access content

 Double manslaughter conviction for construction co

Tuesday 28th June 2016
Monavon Construction pleaded guilty to two counts of corporate manslaughter and to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act at the Old Bailey on 9 May. Sentencing took place on 27 June. British Transport Police officer Gavin Brewer, 32, and television producer Stuart Meads, 34, had been out drinking together. The pair were seen on CCTV walking along a street in the early hours of the morning on 19 October 2013.
Open-access content

 Crane hire worker killed in roof fall

Monday 4th July 2016
The victim was an employee of A-Lift Crane Hire, which had been hired by Premier Roofing Systems to supply a crane to lift roofing sheets at food products supplier Virani Foods’ factory of in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.As the sheets were being lifted onto the roof, the employee fell through an unprotected skylight and died as a result of his injuries.The Health and Safety Executive investigated the accident, which happened on 9 August 2013, and found no preventative measures to allow operatives to work safely on the roof.
Open-access content

 Worker in excavator crush on school demolition site

Tuesday 12th July 2016
Complete Demolition had been contracted to demolish a school at Stanney Lane, Ellesmere Port in Cheshire to make way for a new leisure centre. On 27 November 2013, while the site was being cleared, a skip truck driver reversed into a space that a 40 tonne excavator was vacating. Another worker, who was on foot, was standing in the same area. As the excavator manoeuvred it hit him, knocked him to the ground and ran over his foot.
Open-access content
Image credit: ©REX Shutterstock

 Search resumes for missing Didcot bodies

Monday 18th July 2016
Ken Cresswell, 57, Chis Huxtable, 34, and John Shaw, 61, were trapped underneath rubble on 23 February and have not been found. Michael Collings, 53, was also killed and his body has already been recovered.The decommissioned Didcot A power station in Oxfordshire was due to be demolished when the boiler house partially collapsed on 23 February. A 50 m exclusion zone was then set up around the site after the remaining structure became unstable.
Open-access content
There was a crack in the sidewall of the loading shovel's tyre | Image credit © HSE

 *UPDATE* Untrained fitter killed fixing loading shovel tyre

Monday 27th June 2016
Matthew Hoare, a mobile tyre fitter for Watling Tyre Services (read previous story from earlier this month), was sent out alone to repair the puncture on a wheel of a loading shovel at brick maker Hammill Brick in Kent. He was carrying out a plug repair, when the 1.4 m-diameter tyre failed and exploded.
Open-access content

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  Morrisons’ £3.5m fine is ‘a warning to all employers’, says council

Friday 24th March 2023
Morrisons supermarket has been fined £3.5 million for failing to ensure the health and safety of an epileptic employee who died after falling from a shop stairway.
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 IOSH launches new five-year strategy

Tuesday 21st March 2023
IOSH launches its new five-year strategy this spring. It will build and act on the reshaped purpose and ambition gained during WORK 2022, which ran from 2017 to 2022.
Open-access content
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 Risk & Compliance software provider collaborates with HSE and Costain to improve risk management on worksites

Friday 17th March 2023
A Belfast-based Risk & Compliance software provider has been collaborating with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and construction giant Costain as part of an ongoing project to unlock artificial intelligence’s (AI) potential in improving the management of risks on worksites.
Open-access content

Latest from Construction

web_Cranes-on-construction-site_credit_iStock-1352083784.jpg

 Risk & Compliance software provider collaborates with HSE and Costain to improve risk management on worksites

Friday 17th March 2023
A Belfast-based Risk & Compliance software provider has been collaborating with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and construction giant Costain as part of an ongoing project to unlock artificial intelligence’s (AI) potential in improving the management of risks on worksites.
Open-access content
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 Musculoskeletal disorders in construction

Thursday 2nd March 2023
Ian Whittles, an HSE construction inspector, reveals the cultural challenges in the sector, the drive behind the Work Right campaign and the musculoskeletal benefits it hopes to achieve.
Open-access content
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 Principal contractor handed £146k fine for fatal excavator crush goes into liquidation

Tuesday 14th February 2023
Birch Brothers (Kidderminster) Ltd was the principal contractor on a construction project in Derbyshire that was building a concrete overflow weir structure on the site. The Midlands firm had brought in steel fixers and joiners to undertake the work.
Open-access content

Latest from Safe systems of work

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 Penalties mount for vehicle parts maker on OSHA’s ‘severe violator enforcement programme’

Wednesday 10th August 2022
The US Department of Labor has presented an Ohio-based vehicle parts manufacturer on its ‘severe violator enforcement programme’ with a fine of $480,240 (approx. £373,000) after inspectors found it had continually exposed workers to multiple machine hazards
Open-access content
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 Dyson lands £1.2m fine after worker escapes more serious injuries

Friday 5th August 2022
Dyson Technologies has been handed a £1.2 million fine after a worker at its Wiltshire site narrowly escaped being crushed by a 1.5 tonne milling machine.
Open-access content
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 Talking shop: hand dominance

Friday 1st July 2022
How should organisations consider left-handedness in their safety management systems? Four industry leaders offer their thoughts.
Open-access content

Latest from Electricity

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 Farmyard electrocution led to three separate sentences

Wednesday 21st December 2022
On 30 September 2019, an employee of Connop and Son Ltd was pouring concrete at Worton Grounds Farm near Banbury when the arm of a mobile concrete pump he was using came into contact with an overhead powerline.
Open-access content
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 Failures to apply learnings led to £3.6m fine

Wednesday 7th September 2022
A mining company has been fined £3.6 million after two electricians suffered severe burns in separate incidents.
Open-access content
web_United-States-flag_credit_iStock-487485528.png

 Penalties mount for vehicle parts maker on OSHA’s ‘severe violator enforcement programme’

Wednesday 10th August 2022
The US Department of Labor has presented an Ohio-based vehicle parts manufacturer on its ‘severe violator enforcement programme’ with a fine of $480,240 (approx. £373,000) after inspectors found it had continually exposed workers to multiple machine hazards
Open-access content

Latest from Work at height

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 British Airways subsidiary fined £230K after engineer suffers life-changing fall

Thursday 16th February 2023
We speak to HSE inspector Dr Sara Lumley about a case where an aircraft engineer fell from a maintenance dock, causing life-changing injuries.
Open-access content
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 2.3m fatal fall results in £480,000 fine

Thursday 6th October 2022
We speak with HSE inspector Pippa Trimble about how a lorry driver’s fatal fall resulted in an almost half-million-pound fine
Open-access content
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  Fatal fall lands family-owned firm with £190,000 fine

Tuesday 30th August 2022
A waste and recycling firm has been found guilty of safety failings after an experienced maintenance contractor sustained fatal injuries in a seven-metre fall
Open-access content
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