A firm in Nottinghamshire has appeared in court after a young employee severed the majority of his forearm in a machine which was not guarded correctly.

Mark Marshall, from Retford, was employed by Kybotech Ltd when the incident occurred in July 2013. He was working on an assembly line at the firm’s site in Tuxford and his role was to stack treated wood panels for storage, first removing them from a conveyor and then, wearing a glove, manually applying wood treatment to areas that hadn’t been fully coated. However, on the day of incident, the glove fell onto the conveyor in front of a drive mechanism. He instinctively went to reach for it however, as he did so, his hand was drawn into the mechanism through an opening above the conveyor chain.

Mr Marshall’s hand and a lot of his forearm were severed as a result of the incident and were also reduced further during surgery. He will need a further operation and hasn’t been able to go back to work since the incident happened.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that a piece of plastic that would have lessened the size of the gap in front of the drive mechanism had been damaged previously, meaning the gap wasn’t small enough to stop a person’s hand from being drawn in.

Kybotech Ltd was fined £40,000 along with over £1300 in costs after it pleaded guilty to breaching the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

HSE inspector Stuart Pilkington said after the hearing: “This was an extremely traumatic incident, not just for Mr Marshall, but for his colleagues as well.

“It was also easily preventable. Had the risks been properly assessed by Kybotech Ltd, they would have identified the need to improve the existing guarding so that any openings were of a size that prevented a person’s hand being drawn in.

“This case highlights the importance of ensuring dangerous machinery is properly guarded.”