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Safety and Health Practitioner (SHP) is first for independent health and safety news.
March 20, 2012

Migrant worker killed in front of his son

A worker suffered fatal crush injuries only ten days after starting work for a carpentry firm in London.

Polish national, Andrzej Rokita, was working for M M Contracting Ltd when the incident took place on 22 March 2010 at the firm’s warehouse in Leyton.

The 55-year-old had been employed to make doors, and on the day of the incident he was helping his son, who also worked for the firm, to move wooden boards, which had been stacked upright against a wall. The boards each weighed 55kg and the company’s usual system for moving them was for one employee to stand in front of the stack, taking the weight of the unwanted boards, while another worker pulled out one of the boards from the side.

Mr Rokita attempted to hold a stack of boards but was unable to support the weight and they fell on top of him. He suffered serious crush injuries and died at the scene.

The HSE visited the warehouse the same day but was unable to determine how many boards had fallen on Mr Rokita as the pile had been cleared. A Prohibition Notice was issued to the firm requiring it to create a safe system for stacking the boards.

HSE inspector Kevin Smith told SHP that the company should have either stored the boards flat on the floor, or inside a racking system. He said: “This was a death waiting to happen. Incidents such as this are still a common occurrence in the industry despite the existence of guidance from the HSE offering simple, inexpensive solutions for stacking wood safely.

“As a direct result of the company’s failure to provide safe storage for their everyday materials, a father and husband has lost his life. There is no excuse for employers not ensuring that wood on their premises is properly stored, posing the most minimal risk to their staff.”

M M Contracting appeared at Southwark Crown Court on 14 March and pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974. It was fined £26,000 and ordered to pay £9000 in costs.

In mitigation, a director for the firm said he deeply regretted the incident and the company has subsequently revised its storage procedures by installing a rack for the boards. He also said the company had no previous convictions and it had fully cooperated with the investigation.

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Lawid_Jon
Lawid_Jon
12 years ago

What a SAD case. The HSE staff in this Company need to do more HSE inspection, house keeping etc. This could have been prevented to occur.