A worker suffered back, leg and hip fractures when a piling hammer broke free and knocked him over, a court has heard.
62-year-old Eric Wilson from Hartlepool, was controlling the four-tonne piling hammer when the incident occurred in September 2012. It was suspended from an excavator while work was being carried out to renew a sewage outfall across a nearby beach and broke free while Mr Wilson was lifting it into position.
He was standing in seawater approximately one metre deep and driving timber piles into the beach with the hammer at the time of the incident. However, as the hammer was moved from one pile to the next, the supporting sling broke and with it the hammer fell and knocked him down into the water.
As well as the aforementioned fractures, Mr Wilson suffered muscle damage to his shoulder, back and knee and needed to remain in hospital for a total of 11 days. He hasn’t been able to return to work and even though he can walk unaided, he still suffers with persistent pain and has had to move into a bungalow to avoid using stairs.
This week (20th April), Hartlepool Magistrates’ Court heard that a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation discovered that specialist civil engineering contractor, Newcastle-based Southbay Civil Engineering Ltd, who employed Mr Wilson, had failed in their duty to correctly plan, supervise and conduct the lifting operation in a safe manner. It found that Costain Ltd, the principal contractor for this project, had failed to correctly manage and monitor this phase of the work.
The court heard that the company had initially planned to use a smaller hammer to carry out the work, which could be lifted easily by the excavators on site. However, the smaller hammer was deemed as not powerful enough and so the larger hammer was drafted in.
Although the extra weight wasn’t an issue for the excavators, the additional length of it led to problems in lifting the hammer over some piles. This in turn led to the firm adopting unsafe working practices, causing the sling to break and hammer to fall. Had the work plan been altered when the larger hammer was brought in, the incident could have been avoided.
Berkshire-based Costain Ltd was fined £19,000 for the incident, along with costs of £14,895.25 after it pleaded guilty to breaching the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. Southbay Civil Engineering Ltd was fined £19,000 along with costs of £8,652.45 after pleading guilty to breaching the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.