Pages On: Faulty Work Equipment
Whilst fault equipment at work is a rare occurrence, it can often prove extremely dangerous. Equipment doesn’t have to be broken or dysfunctional to prove hazardous, sometimes design oversights to safety controls can be fatal to workers. If something has failed in its proper operation which you use for work, and has caused you injury, you probably stand a good chance of claiming work accident compensation.
Laundry firm fined over worker spinal injury
Posted: 19 November 2014
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Faulty Work Equipment, Leg Injuries, Spine & Back Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A Telford-based laundry firm has been fined £8,000 after a worker suffered “serious injuries” from the machinery. 19-year-old Matthew Brown had been working at the Cleantex Ltd launderette when the accident happened. He had been retrieving clothing from one of the industrial machines when he became trapped, leaving him with serious leg and spinal injuries. Following the accident Mr Brown required emergency surgery on the 22nd October 2013. It was heard in court that he thought that the machine had stopped moving when he entered it to remove the clothing, but…
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Worker wins £40k compensation for hand injury
Posted: 28 August 2014
Posted in: Faulty Work Equipment, Hand Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A worker who injured his hand while operating an aluminium-rolling machine has won £40,000 in compensation. Robert Gibbons, from Wallsend, had been operating a machine used to roll aluminium sheeting into shape when his hand became caught in the rollers. His right hand, which is also his dominant hand, was left seriously fractured and deformed. Mr Gibbons worked for Alnmaritec, a boatbuilding company, when the accident happened. The machine he had been operating, a Flat Bar Pyramid Rolls machine, was controlled using a foot pedal. The machine was meant to stop…
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Heinz worker has hand sliced off by unguarded machine
Posted: 19 May 2014
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Faulty Work Equipment, Hand Injuries, Workplace Injuries
The food giant Heinz has been fined after an engineer had his hand sliced off by a potato-peeling machine. The worker suffered “life-changing injuries” in the accident that could easily have been avoided at the Heinz factory in Norfolk. 49-year-old Alec Brackenbury had been servicing the machine at the company’s Westwick plant in Worstead when the accident happened last June. Mr Brackenbury is unable to work, drive or carry out many of his day-to-day duties as a result of the accident. The company received a fine of £50,000 at Norwich Magistrates’…
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Safety failures caused two factory deaths
Posted: 24 July 2013
Posted in: Faulty Work Equipment, Workplace Injuries, Wrongful & Accidental Death
In December 2010, two engineers lost their lives after being dragged into machinery at a Merseyside chipboard factory. An inquest found that the deaths were down to a failure in following factory procedures. The inquest jury concluded that the tragedies could have been prevented had the engineers been trained on how to use the machinery properly and safely. James Bibby and Thomas Elmer died from the major injuries sustained when they were dragged into a conveyor belt at the Sonae chipboard factory in Kirkby. The jury said, in a narrative verdict, that…
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Ashbury Chocolates fined £5,000 following worker's severed finger
Posted: 20 June 2013
Posted in: Faulty Work Equipment, Finger Injuries, Workplace Injuries
Ashbury Chocolates, a chocolate making company from Corby, Northamptonshire, has been fined £5,000 after an employee’s finger was severed when cleaning the machinery. After the company admitted to breaching equipment regulations at Kettering Magistrates’ Court, they were fined £5,000, on top of which they had to pay costs of £3,500 and a victim surcharge of £15. Joao Countinho, aged 41 from Peterborough, was cleaning the part of the machine which pipes liquid chocolate into moulds, called the depositor, on the 29th of February last year. Prosecutors say he reached up to…
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Waste industry dangers highlighted in court
Posted: 18 April 2013
Posted in: Arm Injury, Faulty Work Equipment, Workplace Injuries
A Lincoln man suffered life-changing injuries because of a series of safety failings at the waste recycling plant where he worked in Scunthorpe, a court has heard. The 25-year-old worker had his arm severed when he tried to clear a blockage on a conveyor forming part of a metal sorting line. The man was in hospital for a week but surgeons were unable to reattach the arm. He has been unable to return to work since the incident. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigated, prosecuted the company after…
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Engineering firm fined after worker loses finger
Posted: 6 March 2013
Posted in: Faulty Work Equipment, Finger Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A Leicester engineering company has been fined after an employee’s finger was crushed in machinery. Benjamin Asare was using a pneumatic press to insert bearings into their housings when the ram came down onto his right hand. His index finger was crushed and had to be amputated. Due to on-going problems related to his injuries he has not been able to return to work. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the incident found that the ram of the machine was running significantly faster than it should – an…
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