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March/April 2023 issue

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Crushed worker sustains multiple injuries in fencer’s third incident

Open-access content Monday 16th July 2018
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

Crushed worker sustains multiple injuries in fencer's third incident

Blok N Mesh employee John Evans was helping to load fencing panels into shipping containers on 23 February 2017 when around 34 panels fell on him. He sustained multiple injuries, which included a broken left shoulder, fractured vertebrae in his neck, two broken ribs, contusions to his lungs, and soft tissue damage to his face.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found Blok N Mesh had had two previous incidents in identical situations but failed to devise a safe system of work. An HSE inspector told IOSH Magazine that only minor injuries were sustained in both cases.

Liverpool Magistrates' Court was told on 9 July that the London-based company, which also has manufacturing and distribution facilities in Knowsley, Merseyside and 18 nationwide depots, did not have control measures to prevent unsecured panels from falling.

The HSE found Blok N Mesh had failed to plan the work effectively.

Since the latest incident, the company has introduced a new system, which involves loading the fencing using specially designed stillages, eliminating the need for workers to be inside the containers.

Blok N Mesh, which won a Queen's Enterprise Award for innovation in 2016 for its work with on-ground fencing systems, pleaded guilty to breaching ss 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act and must also pay £5,177 costs.

On 14 March 2017, the HSE issued Blok N Mesh with a prohibition notice after it had allowed "the vertical storage of fence panel and fence doors without any restraint or way of securing the panel and doors to prevent them falling" at the firm's Knowsley Industrial Park site.

You may also be interested in...

geograph.org.uk/Stanley Walker and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 Worker dragged into machine through 14 cm conveyor gap

Monday 9th July 2018
Leeds Crown Court was told that the W E Rawson employee was working on a Desco packaging machine, which compresses and shrink-wraps mattress infill pads.   On 28 February 2014, a set of pads failed to pass through the machine. As the chargehand attempted to force them through, he came into contact with the machine’s upper and lower in-running conveyors, which were used to drive the pads. He was drawn into the 145 mm gap between the two conveyors down to his waist and died of severe crush injuries two days later.
Open-access content

 Largest Welsh milk processor to pay £200,000 for burns injuries

Friday 13th July 2018
Wrexham Magistrates’ Court was told on 11 July that an employee at Tomlinson’s Dairies was modifying the pipework at the back of one of the firm’s plants on the Five Crosses Industrial Estate in Minera when the incident happened on 3 May 2017.A pneumatic valve opened and the worker, who was covered in hot caustic and steam, sustained 27% burns to his body. He remained in hospital for four weeks.
Open-access content
A worker collapsed in a pool of dichloromethane while cleaning a RIB

 Boat maker fined after teen apprentice burned by solvent

Tuesday 24th July 2018
Humber Fabrications has been fined for the incident but an inspector from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has confirmed that it no longer uses dichloromethane (DCM). On 23 March 2016 the 19-year-old trainee was using a cloth soaked in DCM to remove residual glue as well as dirt that had built up while the vessel was in storage at the site in Hull, East Yorkshire.
Open-access content
Image credit: KD/KPA/Keystone USA/REX/Shutterstock

 US meat plants record average of 17 ‘severe’ incidents a month, OSHA reveals

Friday 6th July 2018
The data, which has been analysed by The Guardian newspaper and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent, not-for-profit organisation based in London, shows that on average there are 17 “severe” incidents a month in US meat plants. The injuries include amputations, burns and head trauma.
Open-access content

 Lack of risk assessment saw workers engulfed in spray booth explosion

Monday 30th July 2018
The Eastern Daily Press reported that 56-year-old Barry Joy and 28-year-old Daniel Timbers had been working at Harford Attachments’ new factory on Spar Road in Norwich when the paint booth they were working in exploded and turned into a fireball.
Open-access content
©iStock/adventtr

 Gas cylinder shot through workshop injuring two

Thursday 28th June 2018
Redhall Engineering Services pleaded guilty to breaching s 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act after the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found there was no safe system of work for the job.On 6 January 2017 an employee had opened the pressure relief valves on several gas cylinders he had been asked to decommission and dispose of, to release any oxygen that remained inside.
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