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May/June 2023 issue

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*UPDATE* Fatal limestone crush leaves Irish magnesium producer with £84k fine

Open-access content Monday 15th May 2017
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

*UPDATE* Fatal limestone crush leaves Irish magnesium producer with £84k fine

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) investigation found that workers at Premier Periclase's plant at Drogheda, County Louth should not have been allowed to climb onto the preheater's turntable to break up the heavy overhead limestone blockages. The regulator also concluded that a suspended scaffold should have been erected in the preheater's upper level to ensure workers were stationed above the blockages. Instead, a ladder had been used, which also presented a high fall risk.

Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court heard that on 30 October 2014, production section chargehand Paddy Lambe and three general operatives were called to clear the limestone chunks, which had built up in the 30 m preheater vessel, as part of a routine maintenance programme.

Premier Periclase manufactures a product known as "dead burned magnesium oxide" (MgO), also known as Periclase, which is used to make refractory bricks for lining high temperature furnaces in the steel and glass industries. The magnesium has a high melting point and is chemically unreactive, making it ideal for this application.

The production process uses locally-sourced limestone and seawater as the raw materials. The limestone is heated in the preheater vessel and connecting lime kiln to 1,200 degrees Celsius and then mixed with water and seawater salts before a further high temperature process creates the magnesium oxide.

On 25 October, the lime kiln and preheater were shut down to allow the production section to carry out the limestone blockage clearance.

The court heard how the production section team normally stand outside the preheater vessel and use long chisel bars inserted through portholes in the vessel's walls to knock any blockages down onto the hydraulic turntable level situated halfway down the vessel and into a discharge chute.

During normal operation, the vessel is closed. However, when the shutdown takes place, the plant's maintenance section operates four hydraulic rams to lower the turntable, revealing a 75 cm opening. This allows the operatives in the production section to sweep any fallen debris off the turntable into the central discharge chute. To complete the sweeping task, operatives often climb onto the turntable to get to hard-to-reach debris. Standing on the turntable, operatives can also check for refractory damage on the preheater's internal walls.

At 3pm on the 30 October, Lambe and one of the operatives climbed onto the turntable inside the preheater vessel while the remaining operatives remained outside at the turntable level. Lambe placed a 2.7 m aluminum ladder on the turntable, resting against the preheater's internal "cone". After climbing the ladder, he asked one of his co-workers for a 1.2 m scaffold plank to stand on and a long chisel to break up a stubborn piece of blocked limestone.

The court heard that Lambe rested the scaffold plank on an internal metal fin and the top rung of the ladder and then, standing on the plank, used the chisel bar to chip away at the blockage, which was just under a metre away.

HSA inspector Frank Kerins told IOSH Magazine that "according to one of the co-workers, the stubborn blockage was approximately one metre wide by 2 m high and was at Lambe's face level. Lambe called down from the top of the ladder to one of his co-workers, who was standing on the turntable to 'take a few steps back and to tell the two other men to do likewise'."

The co-worker stepped back but remained standing on the turntable while Lambe continued to chip away, assuming the blockage would fall away from him and onto the turntable.

Kerins told IOSH Magazine that, according to the witnesses, there was a sudden noise followed by a large cloud of dust and falling debris. When the dust cleared, Lambe was hanging upside down, his legs on the fin. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Premier Periclase, a subsidiary of Austrian company RHI, pleaded guilty to breaching s 8(2)(e) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 contrary to s 77(9)(a) at an earlier hearing before Judge Michael O'Shea sentenced the company on 4 May.

You may also be interested in...

 Koch Straightener crush injury hands steel manufacturer £200k fine

Tuesday 16th May 2017
The magistrates’ court, North Staffordshire Justice Centre heard how on 23 October 2015, a 51-year-old worker was removing leftover steel from a machine called the Koch Straightener at steelmaker Rom’s site. As he was removing the material, his hand became trapped between the rotating rollers inside the machine and was severely crushed, resulting in the loss of the top of his right index finger.
Open-access content
The sequence trolley tipped on to a worker in the north yard

 *UPDATE* DHL auditor crushed by 770 kg load at JCB HQ

Thursday 18th May 2017
Under a service agreement with DHL, the logistics giant audited incoming deliveries to JCB’s headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire, before the components were sent to the factory’s vehicle assembly line.On 16 October 2013, a DHL teletruck operator unloaded two stillages of gearboxes from a curtain-sided container truck on the north yard so they could be audited by his colleague, Michael Addison.
Open-access content
© iStock/eyegelb

 Fatal limestone crush leaves Irish firm with £84k fine

Thursday 11th May 2017
Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court heard that Patrick Lambe was part of a four-man team that had been employed to clear limestone blockages in the preheater at Premier Periclase’s plant in Drogheda, County Louth when the incident occurred on 30 October 2014.
Open-access content
©Tim Scrivener/REX/Shutterstock

 DHL auditor crushed by 770 kg equipment load at JCB HQ

Monday 8th May 2017
An electric tug was towing the trolley through the yard at JCB’s headquarters in Rochester, Staffordshire on 16 October 2013. At the same time, a DHL employee was auditing incoming deliveries nearby.Stafford Crown Court was told that the trolley fell on its side and struck the worker, pinning him to a stillage. He sustained fractures and internal injuries.  The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) investigation found there was no system to segregate vehicles operating the warehouse from both DHL and JCB workers who were on foot.
Open-access content
The railings on the balcony gave way while the sofa (pictured, wrapped in plastic) was being manoeuvred into the first-floor apartment | Image credit: ©Ben Cawthra/REX/Shutterstock

 Construction firm guilty of corporate manslaughter over fatal London balcony falls

Wednesday 24th May 2017
Martinisation London was found guilty last week (19 May) at the Old Bailey. The court heard that Polish nationals Tomasz Procko, 22, and Kyrol Szymanski, 29, were part of a team of construction workers that was renovating the flat in Cadogan Square, Belgravia. On 21 November 2014, five workmen used a rope to lift the 114.3 kg sofa up from the pavement and over a balustrade into the first-floor dwelling because it was too large to be carried up the stairs.
Open-access content
The Court of Appeal sat at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast | Image credit: ©FrankRamspott

 NI Court of Appeal boosts builder’s jail sentence as deterrent

Thursday 25th May 2017
The court replaced Norman McKenzie’s suspended sentence with a custodial one which, it said, would act as a warning to the construction industry that offenders of gross negligence who put workers’ lives at risk would be sent to prison. Portadown farm owner Ivan Reilly had contracted McKenzie to assist with the construction of a three-bay farm shed at his premises.
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