An Essex-based vegetable nursery has appeared in court after an employee’s arm was severed when it was pulled into the unguarded nip point of a machine.

The 39 year-old worker, who lived in a cabin on the firm’s Nazeing site, was working with a large moving machine when the incident occurred last April. The machine was assembling fibre sheeting, which was full of vegetable and plant waste and was cutting it up and ‘blowing’ into a chute and then into the skip.

The man, an employee of the firm for just four months before the incident happened, was tensing the sheet and attempting to feed it square-on into the roller. However, his glove got stuck in the edge of the sheet and his left arm was then forcibly pulled into the machine, leaving it severed at the lower forearm when it got stuck between two parts.

He was taken to Broomfield hospital and although surgeons managed to successfully re-attach the limb, his arm will now be severely affected for the rest of his life. Since the incident he hasn’t been able to regain any movement or grip below the amputation scar. He has been unable to return to work and suffers constant pain as a result of the incident.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the incident, subsequently prosecuting Glenholme Nursery Ltd for safety failings. Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard last week (10th March) that the dangerous unguarded nip hadn’t been identified by the company and as such it had not assessed the risks posed by the machine. The company had also failed to put in place safe systems of work so it had become normal practice for workers to tension moving sheets by hand, putting them dangerously close to the machine.

Glenholme Nursery Ltd was fined £18,000 and told to pay prosecution costs of £862.25 in addition to a £120 victim surcharge after it admitted to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.