Recycling firm fined over steel beam injuries

A recycling firm has been successfully prosecuted after an employee was badly injured when he was hit by a steel beam weighing more than 100kg.
The 52-year-old from Horwich was standing next to a forklift truck in the yard at J Doyle Ltd on Gaskell Street on 18 July 2012 when a six-metre-long beam slid down the forks and fell onto his left leg.
The worker sustained a fractured ankle, a deep cut to his shin, and bruising and swelling to his shin, ankle and foot. He was off work for more than three months and now walks with a limp.
An investigation by the HSE found that the company had failed to make sure the work to lift the beams was planned, supervised or carried out safely.
Trafford Magistrates’ Court head that another worker at the site had been trying to load the steel beam into an empty skip so it could be delivered to another customer. As he did so, it slid from the forks on the forklift truck injuring the delivery driver.
The HSE found that the company had used this method of lifting steel beams on previous occasions, but had failed to plan the work properly.
On 15 November, J Doyle Ltd was fined £2,000 and was ordered to pay prosecution costs of £1,500 after pleading guilty to breaching regulation 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.
Following the hearing, HSE inspector Emily Osborne said: “The firm should never have allowed a long steel beam, weighing over 100kg, to be lifted on a forklift truck in this dangerous way. The work was not planned and the risks ignored.
“The company has now stopped using a forklift to lift steel beams and instead uses a HIAB crane on the back of a flatbed truck to deliver steel beams to customers. If they had lifted the beam using this equipment at the time of the incident then the employee’s injuries could have been avoided.”
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Recycling firm fined over steel beam injuries
A recycling firm has been successfully prosecuted after an employee was badly injured when he was hit by a steel beam weighing more than 100kg.
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