Health, Safety & Quality Consultancy
Contractor in court after shopper felled by falling hoarding
A building contractor has been fined after a woman suffered life-changing head injuries when she was hit by a section of fencing that collapsed in a gust of wind.
A Worcestershire based construction company was refurbishing part of the Birmingham Metropolitan College in Kidderminster, known as The Piano Building, when the incident happened on 15 May 2012.
The 56-year-old woman from Kidderminster, who does not wish to be named, was walking past the site when two sections of the hoarding blew over and collapsed on her, knocking her down and leaving her unconscious.
The woman suffered substantial head injuries, including severe concussion, a gash on the head and fluid and bruising on the brain. The injuries also affected her balance and senses of hearing, smell and taste. She spent 16 days in hospital and was unable to work for seven months.
Kidderminster Magistrates’ Court heard that the woman’s injuries were sustained two weeks after another part of the perimeter fence had blown over in the wind. No one had been hurt on that occasion. No expert advice was sought after the first incident.
The project, given it was in a busy pedestrianised town centre, should have been subject to a thorough risk assessment, and a competent design to ensure it did not collapse as the results could have been ‘forseeably catastrophic’.
The company pleaded guilty to a breach of Regulation 28(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £10,250.
Employee in court after striking co-workers head with digger bucket
A construction site worker from Rushden has been prosecuted after he struck another worker on the head with the bucket on a digger.
The worker was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found he had been using a mobile phone while operating the excavator vehicle on a building site in Milton Keynes, and had not noticed his colleague.
Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court heard that the worker had been operating the excavator at the Middleton site off Brickhill Street on 8 December 2012, working alongside a colleague who was driving the site dumper truck. The operation involved excavating and dumping material into the truck for transport to another location at the site.
The court heard that the driver of the dumper truck, who does not wish to be named, had returned to the excavation site to await the next load of material. The worker had been using his mobile phone and, not realising his colleague had returned, rotated the upper body of the excavator causing the metal bucket to strike the driver on the side of his head.
His colleague sustained multiple fractures to his jaw as well as a punctured and collapsed lung. He was hospitalised for ten days and did not return to work until 14 months later, and will require further surgery on his jaw.
The worker was ordered to pay compensation of £2,500 to the injured colleague, and costs of £1,554 after pleading guilty to a single breach the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.