A construction company has appeared in court after a worker sustained serious injuries in an incident where he was struck by a concrete beam.
Leicester Magistrates’ Court heard that M&J Ballantyne Ltd had been contracted for a house build on land in Rutland. The concrete beams required for the ground floor of the house had arrived and had been stacked around the site. The following day, workers started to install them and they were being moved from various locations on a telehandler. They were lifted either on the forks or in two slings.
The court heard how, in March 2014, a beam 4.75 metres in length and approximately 300kg in weight was being placed into slings slung from a single fork. They were lifted above the ground and then rotated through 90 degrees.
51-year-old employee Derek Graham, from Roxburghshire, was holding the end of a beam to prevent it from swinging in front of a vehicle whilst his colleague raised the telehandler forks to lift it to shoulder height. However, the driver then began to reverse the telehandler, one of the slings fell off the fork, leading the beam to crash down onto Mr Graham.
As a result of the incident, Mr Graham needed to be airlifted to hospital suffering with severe pelvic injuries. He spent the following six weeks in hospital and needed a number of operations for his injuries.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Mr Graham not been aware of a document relating to the lifting of the beams and his colleague who was operating the telehandler hadn’t received any formal training. The company was fined £10,000 alongside costs of £551 after it pleaded guilty to breaching the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations.