A worker who broke all his ribs and suffered a punctured lung when he was hit by a forklift truck has been unable to return to work since the incident.
A 60-year-old quality-assurance manager from Wirral had been supervising a road-tanker lorry full of industrial waste, which was being decanted into a large vessel held by a 35-tonne forklift truck, at the Trafford premises of Greater Manchester firm, Collier Industrial Waste, on 14 January 2010, a court was told.
When the job was finished, the man set off back to his office, but was struck by the reversing forklift as he crossed the yard. He had been wearing a coat over his high-visibility vest and may have been talking on a mobile phone, although this was not proven.
Emphasising the fault of the company, Daniel Longdon, the HSE inspector who prosecuted the case in court, told SHP: “The driver did not see him. The incident happened because the company did not have sufficient systems in place to segregate vehicles from people.”
The inspector added that it was lucky that the forklift started forward immediately after hitting the man, or he would have been completely run over. As it was, all his ribs were broken and he suffered a punctured lung and a broken leg, pelvis and shoulder. He was in hospital for six months, for one month of which he was placed in a drug-induced coma because of the severity of his injuries. The incident caused him to suffer permanent injury, with ongoing mobility problems, and he has been unable to return to work.
Collier Industrial Waste pleaded guilty to a breach of reg.17(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 by failing to organise the workplace to ensure pedestrians and vehicles could work safely.
The company was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £9410 in full costs at Trafford Magistrates’ Court on 4 November.
Since the incident, Collier has introduced marked vehicle walkways and now uses banksmen to ensure vehicles are guided by another worker on the ground as they are reversing.
It said in mitigation that it did not think it had needed much segregation, as the yard had been a relatively open area.
Inspector Longdon concluded: “This was an entirely preventable incident that could have cost one of Collier’s employees his life. There were several systems the company could have introduced to make sure workers were not put at risk by moving vehicles. Most of these would have been simple and inexpensive.
“If another worker had stood on the ground to guide the forklift truck as it reversed, then this incident could have been avoided.”
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As a SHEQ Manager I strongly agree that this accident was very preventable, i feel it is very ironic that the person involed was the Quality Assurance Manager who would normally work in tandom with the health and safety department.
We are all far from perfect, but in areas where risk is at the higher side of the scale we would expect the basics put into place.