A number of road building firms have appeared in court after a road worker suffered horrendous arm injuries as a result of it becoming entangled in a machine used for road surfacing.
Three construction businesses were told they must pay over £400,000 in fines and costs after they were found guilty of numerous safety failings.
The unnamed worker was preparing a chip spreader, used to scatter stone chips over asphalt, on the day of the incident. The worker was conducting road surfacing works on Hertfordshire’s A1001 however, after he started up the machine he needed to reposition it for the stone chips to be loaded. He had to move the mesh safety guard before doing this and tragically, as he reached to do this, he tripped, falling forward and leaving his left arm caught in the rotating drill bit of the machine, called the auger.
The injuries he suffered as a result of the incident were serious that he needed to have his arm amputated and he hasn’t been able to return to work since. An investigation was launched by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident, which found that the worker hadn’t received any formal training regarding how he should be operating the spreader. Moreover, his colleagues had been given just a single evening’s training on the machine since they began work since months prior to the accident. None of the workers had been issued with an operating manual or instructions regarding how they should secure the machine’s guards.
After pleading guilty to several breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, Lafarge Aggregates was fined £175,015, Amey LG fined £150,015, and Ashmac Construction fined £30,015 the incident. Each firm was ordered to pay £18,000 in costs.
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