Quick links:
Workplace transport
Construction
News

Demolition co fined after reversing plant punctured worker’s lungs

Open-access content Tuesday 26th September 2017
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

The 39-year-old worker for Sterry Lane, trading as LPD Demolition, was part of a group working on a site in Staffordshire.

The men were removing debris near an excavator when it reversed. It ran over the employee and left him with punctured lungs, liver injuries and multiple fractures to his legs and pelvis.

He has not been able to return to work since the accident in May 2016.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the company had failed to properly plan the demolition work and had not segregated pedestrian workers and vehicles on the site.

Sterry Lane admitted breaching reg 15(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, which states that construction work must be carried out without risks to safety so far as is reasonably practicable.

The company was fined £50,000 plus £1,727 costs.

You may also be interested in...

Soho House 76 Dean Street, one of the members' clubs in London | Image credit: ©View Pictures/REX/Shutterstock

 Multiple CDM breaches bring fines for construction co and project manager

Tuesday 3rd October 2017
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited two project locations, where In House Design and Build was the principal contractor, after workers and members of the public had raised safety concerns.It made several visits during 2015, Reading Magistrates’ Court was told, and served enforcement notices on the company for unsafe work at height, working in unstable deep excavations, and inadequate arrangements for planning, managing and monitoring construction work.
Open-access content
©iStock/shotbydave

 Irish work deaths fall but farming still ‘area of concern’

Friday 15th September 2017
The Health and Safety Authority’s (HSA) 2016 annual report shows that the three-year rolling fatality rate has remained relatively stable since 2009, following a downward trend between 1999 and 2009. The HSA said that last year it received reports of 45 workplace deaths, 43 of which involved workers while members of the public accounted for the rest.
Open-access content
HSE

 *UPDATE* PVC maker fined for teen’s forklift crush failed to report previous incident

Wednesday 13th September 2017
Ben Pallier-Singleton had worked at the PVC manufacturer’s site in Chinley, Derbyshire, as a process operative for about 12 months when the accident happened on 10 February 2015. He was working the nightshift at the plant’s plastic extrusion department, where rolls of film are made. At 4.20 he drove a FLT down a sloping concrete roadway in the external yard to collect some pallets, but did not return, Manchester Crown Court was told.
Open-access content
HSE

 PVC firm pays £520k after teen crushed to death by forklift

Tuesday 5th September 2017
Ben Pallier-Singleton was driving the FLT down a sloping road in Vinyl Compounds’ Chinley yard in Derbyshire in the early hours of 10 February 2015 when it tipped over. He sustained fatal head and neck injuries, Manchester Crown Court on Minshull Street was told. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Derbyshire Constabulary found that Vinyl Compounds had failed to adequately train Pallier-Singleton, who was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident.
Open-access content
Image credit: HSE

 Joiner left paralysed after house builder failed to provide fall protection

Thursday 31st August 2017
Lincoln Magistrates’ Court was told on 25 August that the 60-year-old joiner was working on the first floor of a building in Grimsby, Lincolnshire when the incident occurred in December 2016. He was installing joists and flooring for Mager Homes and had stepped back after laying a floorboard when he missed his footing and fell through a gap between the joists to the ground floor.The joiner sustained broken vertebrae and was left paralysed from the chest down. He now uses a wheelchair and cannot return to his former trade.
Open-access content
©iStock/Kameleon007

 Fined construction cos exposed residents to carbon monoxide

Monday 23rd October 2017
Principal contractor Wates, part of Wates Group – one of the largest family-owned construction, property services and development companies in the UK – had subcontracted RJ Fitters to remove flue cowls on redundant flue pipes before blocking them off. Cambridge Crown Court was told that operatives had been given a diagram marked with the redundant flues and were expected to find them among the live ones. They made a mistake regarding the correct floor level and blocked a live flue on 19 December 2014.
Open-access content

Latest from News

web-morrison-shutterstock_1205515750.png

  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.
Open-access content
jfc

 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
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

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
BVJK

 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
dru

 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

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
Dyson HSE lead photo.jpg

 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
web_p74_Talking-Shop.png

 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 Workplace transport

FDS_Google

 Waste firm guilty of corporate manslaughter after worker was struck and killed by a reversing wheeled loader vehicle

Tuesday 28th February 2023
A waste firm and its director have been found guilty over the death of a worker who was run over by a reversing lorry.
Open-access content
dru

 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
IOSH article vehicle (1).jpg

 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