Teenager suffers electric shock at skate park

Newport City Council has been successfully prosecuted following an incident in which a teenager had a finger amputated after suffering an electric shock at a skate park. 

 

Jamie Edwards, who was 13 at the time, was at the skate park at Newport International Sports Village on 31 December 2011. He went to turn on floodlights unaware the electrical cabinet had been vandalised. He suffered an electric shock, resulting in the amputation of his left index finger, and required a skin graft on his middle finger.

 

Following an investigation by the HSE, Cwmbran Magistrates’ Court heard this week (23 September) that the door of the cabinet had been forced open and vandalised so that electrical parts at 240v were exposed.

 

A park ranger had identified that the cabinet was damaged on 23 December 2011, but no action was taken to repair it. There was a history of the cabinet being forced open and vandalism had occurred on three previous occasions.

 

The HSE told SHP that the previous damage had been identified and repairs were made, but these didn’t address the problem. In addition, inspections of the sports area were made by park rangers and walkabouts were done by the staff from the sports village, but the cabinet wasn’t identified as something that needed to be checked.

 

The court heard that the council had failed to judge the risks properly and so control measures were not put in place, such as greater security measures for the cabinet or arranging for a residual-current device to be fitted.

 

There should also have been better supervision of the skate park and the electrical cabinet should have been marked to warn of the dangers. 

 

Newport City Council, of Civic Centre, Newport, South Wales, pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the HSWA 1971 and was fined £5,000, with costs of £9,477.

 

Following the hearing, HSE inspector Joanne Carter, said: “This was an extremely serious incident that has had disabling long-term effects on a young teenager.

 

“Anyone close to or touching the exposed live parts was in danger of serious injury from electric shock. The fact that the cabinet was located in a damp environment could also have made a shock more severe.

 

“It is disappointing that the health and safety management by the council didn’t address the risks that manifested. They failed to put in systems to control the risk, did not communicate the risks to employees and did not inspect the cabinet. Nor did they improve the mechanical protection of the cabinet or mark it as being an electrical danger.”

 

The skate park has now moved to Tredegar Park, where the sub-station is in a secure building and the floodlights are controlled remotely.

 

In mitigation, the HSE said that immediately after the incident, measures were put in place to make the cabinet secure and procedures were put in place so that the park rangers and recreational assistants knew what to do if they spotted a problem. There was a total overhaul of the management system and the council accepted total responsibility. They also entered an early guilty plea, which reduced the fine by a third.