An engineering company specialising in the manufacture of containers and drums for the nuclear, aerospace and medical industries has been sentenced after a worker was fatally injured.
Preston Crown Court heard that on 21 May 2018, Whilst working at Graham Engineering’s site in Whitehalls Industrial Estate, Colin Willoughby was lying on his back, underneath the raised middle section of a Hugh Smith 1,000 tonne capacity press, using a hand-held electric grinder to remove a weld from the base of a large metal piston. When the weld was removed, the internal ram fell through to the ground, crushing Mr Willoughby resulting in instant death.
An HSE investigation found Graham Engineering Ltd failed to carry out a risk assessment and ensure a safe system of work on the Hugh Smith 1000 tonne capacity press. The 20-tonne middle section of the press was raised using fork lift trucks which exceeded their safe working load, in order to access the underside of the press.
Following a trial in front of a jury Graham Engineering Ltd of Whitehalls Industrial Estate, Nelson was found guilty of breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
The Company was fined £500,000 and ordered to pays costs of £145,487.
Graham Engineering Ltd’s Manufacturing Director was acquitted of an associated charge under Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
Speaking after the hearing HSE principal inspector Steven Boyd said: “An unsafe system of work was adopted by Graham Engineering Ltd whilst undertaking hazardous work and the ensuing sequence of events led to the untimely death of Mr Willoughby. This tragic incident could have been avoided if the task had been adequately risk assessed and supervised to ensure safe procedures were followed”.
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Mmmm, whilst any loss is just as unacceptable as multiple KSI’s I cannot help but wonder how much “fatigue” had to play in this maybe foreseeable even predictable if the weld was the only thing holding-up press parts ? Whether Bhopal, Chernobyl, Zeebrugge whatever, the “chain of causation” generally found to be physical and/or cognitive “fatigue” ???
Then there is the issue surrounding long latency occupational health for 58% of DSE operators presenteeism, eye-strain, Screen Fatigue and binocular vision stress and loss resulting from “Computer Vision Syndrome”, monocular 2D adaptations manifesting in myopic and asthenopic disease.
Of course, so far in the 21st Century their visual repetitive stress injuries unlike WRULD’s and MSK’s have been expediently ignored until the 2018 Accessibility Regulations came into force, forgetting the 1998 PUWER Act or 2011 retrospective Appeal Court Findings.
Anyway, following decades old human “Fatigue Science Research” surrounding airline pilots and those serving in the Military their is little or no excuse for workplace fatigue as it is well understood, may be prevented and/or mitigated appropriately even without a “Right to Disconnect” from your DSE as a Public Health matter with far too many people spending longer on screen than they are asleep each night suffering visual RSI’s / MSD’s.
Even the WHO scaled the visual disruptions / binocular loss and blindness in their 2016 WHO ICD-10 following the HSE Better Display Screen RR 561 2007.