A ground-worker suffered burns when he hit an underground electricity cable with a steel pin while replacing pavement edging in Birmingham.
Birmingham Magistrates’ Court heard Ricky Paul James was the sub-contractor responsible for replacing wooden edgings with concrete ones between the grass verge and the pavement in Denville Crescent. He had been provided with information stating there were buried utility services on site.
Mr James was responsible for scanning the pavement with a specialist tool to identify their location before work started. On 16 August 2011, he wrongly marked where the cable lay and then instructed one of his operatives to carry out the edging work. The 38-year-old worker placed six steel pins in the ground and then began wrapping nylon around the pins to create a guide rope, to ensure the pins were following the curve of the road.
As he adjusted the nylon, one of the pins made contact with a 415-volt underground cable and created an explosion, which caused a jet of fire to shoot out of the ground. The worker escaped with minor burns to his arms and eyebrows and had his clothing singed.
The HSE investigated the incident and found James had not adequately scanned for underground utilities and had marked the wrong area. He should not have started the work until he had requested and viewed service drawings.
HSE inspector Paul Thompson said: “The worker is very lucky to be alive. It is only because he was able to quickly jump back from the blast and extinguish the fire that he wasn’t electrocuted. As he struck the pin it caused a ‘Roman Candle’ effect of fire and sparks to erupt from the ground, sending a jet of fire up from the pin.
“It is of vital importance that any buried services present on a construction site are located with diagrams. Their location must be marked and their presence made known to any operative who may work nearby.
“There is a number of ways of conducting similar work, which avoids using steel pins to penetrate the ground.”
Ricky James appeared in court on 17 January and pleaded guilty to breaching reg.25(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. He was fined £2500 and ordered to pay costs of £4727.
James mitigated that he had changed management systems to ensure he was provided with service diagrams before starting groundwork. He has also stopped using steel pins and now uses a non-metallic alternative. He added that he fully cooperated with the investigation and had no previous convictions.
After the hearing, inspector Thompson confirmed to SHP that Mr James had expressed “clear remorse” for his actions and had worked closely with the HSE following the incident.
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