A factory worker suffered serious head injuries when a powered industrial truck overturned on an uneven surface and fell on him.
The incident took place at cleaning products manufacturer Revelholme Marketing Ltd’s (trading as Unic International) facility in Colwick Road, Nottingham, on 23 January 2009. The worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, was helping to load a lorry using a semi-electric stacker truck.
The factory’s car park was full so the lorry was parked in the road outside the site’s gates. The worker transported a number of loaded pallets from the factory to the lorry using the stacker truck. Once he had finished loading the lorry he began walking back towards the factory with a colleague, who was pulling the stacker truck. As they mounted the pavement, the truck was pulled over the kerb and overturned, striking the worker in the back of the head.
He suffered a fractured cheekbone and was hospitalised for 10 days. He was unable to return to work for three months and has impaired vision following the incident. His colleague was struck in the shoulder when the truck overturned, but he escaped unhurt.
HSE inspector Stuart Pilkington told SHP that the equipment was not suitable for the terrain it was being used on. The truck was not designed for use on uneven surfaces and the company had failed to carry out a risk assessment to identify this danger. He explained that the incident could have been avoided if the lorry had been unloaded inside the factory using the same equipment, or by using a forklift truck if the vehicle was parked offsite.
Inspector Pilkington said: “The stacker truck was mainly used in the factory and car park, but on occasion employees used the truck to load lorries in the road. A slope between the two surfaces and the lip of the dropped kerb made the terrain unsuitable for this type of equipment to be used.
“Companies need to ensure that the work equipment they use, such as stacker trucks, is suitable for the task, and for the conditions in which it is used.”
Unic International appeared at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court on 13 July and was found guilty of breaching reg. 4(3) of PUWER 1998, for using work equipment under unsafe conditions, following a three-day trial. It was fined £5000 and ordered to pay £18,000 in costs.
In mitigation, the company said it had no previous convictions and insisted that it felt its method of work was safe. It has subsequently stopped loading vehicles outside its premises and expressed its regret for the incident.
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In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, we hear from Matt Birtles, Principal Ergonomics Consultant at HSE’s Science and Research Centre, about the different approaches to managing the risks associated with Musculoskeletal disorders.
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“Napo in… Safe moves” is a new film about workplace transport. Central to the film is the fork-lift truck alongside other forms of internal and external transport. The film covers site safety, people safety, vehicle safety, maintenance, visibility, reversing, and loading/unloading. The main theme of the film is that transport in the workplace must be well organised and well managed. The film is available from HSE and from the Napo website at: http://www.napofilm.net