An engineering firm in Cumbria has been fined £12,000 after one of its employees suffered severe injuries when he was hit by a metal frame, weighing almost two tonnes.
The 21 year old worker from Carlisle, who requested not to be named, suffered a number of cuts and fractures to his leg and left foot and a year on has still been unable to return to work.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Tweddle Fabrications Ltd, which trades as Tweddle Engineering, after an investigation discovered that the partially-constructed trailer chassis had got out of control whilst being lifted by two forklift trucks.
Carlisle Magistrates’ Court heard that the workers had been attempting to lift and turn the frame at the company’s Kirkbride factory near Wigton in February 2014. Another of the employees, who was not involved in the lift, was crossing the factory floor when the chassis, weighing 1.8 tonnes moved in an uncontrolled way and hit him.
The court heard that the company hadn’t correctly planned the work, despite it needing a complicated lift with two forklift trucks. Someone should have also been responsible for supervising the lift, with measures put in place to make sure that the other workers were kept a safe distance away.
Tweddle Fabrications Ltd was fined £12,000 and told to pay prosecution costs of £501 after it pleaded guilty to breaching the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.
HSE Inspector Steven Boyd said after the hearing: “The worker still has difficulty walking almost a year after the incident but it could easily have been avoided. He wasn’t involved in the work to rotate the trailer chassis but had no way of knowing his life was being put at risk as he walked across the factory floor.
“Tweddle Fabrications had a legal responsibility to ensure that a complicated lift using two forklifts was planned properly, supervised appropriately and carried out safely but it failed to do any of this.
“This case should act as a warning to manufacturers that they risk the safety of their employees if they ignore the law, and could find themselves in court as a result.”