A steel foundry has been fined £150,000 after a worker died when he was struck in the face by a shard from an abrasive disc that exploded from a hand-held grinding machine. A number of unsafe practices and near miss incidents prior to the fatality had not been properly investigated.
Stuart Stead, 49, of Mexborough, Doncaster, was using the hand-held grinder while he worked on a casting at H.I. Quality Steel Castings Ltd in Forncett Street, Sheffield, on 7 March 2012.
As he used the high-frequency machine, the disc fitted to it suddenly exploded catapulting fragments across his workbay. As the grinder had no guard the pieces were forcibly expelled across the bay, one ending up some ten metres away. A shard went straight through Mr Stead’s visor and hit him in the mouth. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
HSE said the excessive speed of the grinder coupled with the added load caused by the non-standard attachment had put stresses on the disc way beyond its capacity, resulting in its catastrophic failure.
H.I. Quality Steel Castings was prosecuted at Sheffield Crown Court on 11 May following a guilty plea to a serious safety breach at an earlier court appearance.
The court was told that HSE’s investigation had uncovered a number of previous incidents when discs had come off grinders. However, none of these had been mentioned in monthly minutes of the company’s health and safety meetings for the site.
These included:
HSE said H.I. Quality Steel Castings Ltd had allowed the use of unsafe combinations of parts with the grinders, many of which were unguarded. Despite some initial training in abrasive wheels, employees did not understand rotation speeds of machines versus discs and had free access to a wide variety of them, contributing to the prevalence of unsafe combinations.
The company also failed to monitor disc/grinder use so unsafe practices were not picked up and near miss incidents were not properly investigated. HSE said the near-misses should have been a big warning flag to the company.
H.I. Quality Steel Castings Ltd of Foundry Street, Whittington Moor, Chesterfield, was fined £150,000 and ordered to pay £24,000 in costs after admitting breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Jill Thompson said: “This was a horrific incident that devastated Mr Stead’s wife, his children and wider family. It is also, tragically, one that could have been avoided had the company focused on its responsibility to ensure the safety of their employees.
“The safety of Mr Stead and others was not ensured while using hand-held grinders. If monitoring and supervision had been provided to ensure necessary precautions were followed, this tragic incident would not have happened.
“The near-misses should have been a big warning flag to H.I. Quality Steel Castings that there was a serious risk that a worker could be severely injured or killed.
“Employers must make sure that all work involving grinding is assessed for safety to make sure that poor or potentially dangerous practices are removed.”
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You have got two stories muddled up here. The last four paragraphs are from another fatality