A food manufacturing firm has been fined after a worker was blown off the top of a shipping container while moving corrugated metal sheets.

Barry Walton, 64, from Taunton, was an employee of Vion Foods UK Ltd and was working at their food processing plant in Wiveliscombe when the incident happened on 10 February 2010.

Taunton Magistrates’ Court heard that Mr Walton was standing on top of the shipping container lifting the metal sheets from a forklift onto the roof when a gust of wind knocked him off the edge. He fell more than two-and-a-half metres to the ground, breaking his ribs and damaging muscles in his leg and shoulder. He was off work for seven weeks.

A Health and Safety Executive investigation into the incident found that Vion Foods UK Ltd had failed to plan the work properly. They had not carried out a risk assessment or ensured that a safe system of work was in place to prevent a fall. In addition, although the work was being supervised by another employee, he had not had adequate training for working at height.

via Gust of wind blows worker off top of shipping container.

A Llanelli construction firm has been fined after a worker suffered serious injuries when he was hit by a concrete beam.

The employee, from Carmarthen, was working with a colleague for W A Bowler Ltd on the installation of a beam and block floor at Hillside Care Home in the Uplands area of Swansea on 10 March 2010.

The man, who does not want to be named, was at one end of a 174 kilogram beam, and his co-worker was at the other end. They were using lifting straps to manually hoist the beam into position when the colleague accidentally let go of one end of the beam, causing it to fall downwards and hit the concrete beneath.

The see-saw effect created caused the end of the five-metre long beam he was holding to hit him in the groin and throw him upwards. He suffered a hairline fracture to his pelvis and paralysis to the nerve endings in his left leg.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecutors told Swansea Crown Court W A Bowler Ltd had been contracted by another firm to carry out work at the site.

The court was told that the defendant did not provide suitable equipment for the job to be done safely, which resulted in his employees undertaking potentially dangerous manual handling works.

W A Bowler Limited of Highmead House, Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4(1) of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. It was fined £3, 000 with costs of £4, 847.35.

via Llanelli construction firm fined over worker’s injury.

A Fife engineering company has been fined £10,000 after a lathe weighing more than a tonne toppled onto a worker’s leg.

Craig Stewart, 21, worked for AG Brown Ltd, a metal fabrication company which specialises in making stairs and other metal products for the oil and gas industries and general construction industry.

Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard that on 26 May 2010, Mr Stewart was working with a colleague to move a 1.2 tonne lathe from a workshop on Cavendish Way, Glenrothes, to one of the company’s other workshops on Rutherford Road, Glenrothes.

Mr Stewart and his colleague decided to lift the lathe using a lifting eye and a fabric sling hooked over the forks of a fork lift truck. However, the doorway of the workshop was not high enough to move the fork lift truck through it with the forks raised. To overcome this problem, Mr Stewart and his colleague decided to use the fork lift truck to move the lathe as close as possible to the doorway. This would then allow them to lower the lathe onto three skates to move it outside before re-attaching it to the forklift truck for it to be moved to the other workshop.

As his colleague lowered the lathe onto the skates, Mr Stewart noticed that the skate at the heavier chuck end of the lathe was not aligned properly. Mr Stewart crouched down to straighten the skate, but as he did this, the unsecured lathe fell over onto Mr Stewart, crushing his right leg.

He suffered a broken leg and needed surgery to insert a pin the length of his shin. Although he expects to make a full recovery, he has been left with scarring where the pin was inserted. He also needed weekly physiotherapy sessions following the incident and had to give up playing football due to the pain it caused in his leg.

Following the incident, an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that AG Brown Ltd had failed to assess the risks involved in moving the lathe and as a result, there was a lack of planning and supervision which led to Mr Stewart and his colleague devising their own unsafe method to lift and move the lathe.

The investigation also revealed that AG Brown Ltd had purchased four skates the previous year and these had been used in other lifting and moving operations yet only three skates had been provided to Mr Stewart and his colleague on the day of the incident. The investigation also found that the company owned a fork lift truck jib attachment, yet despite this providing a safer method of work than using the lifting sling, it was only after the incident that this was used to lift the lathe.

At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court today, AG Brown Ltd of George Square, Castle Brae, Dunfermline, Fife, was fined £10,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

via Fife company fined after lathe crushes worker’s leg.

EVANSVILLE, Wis. – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Landmark Services Cooperative, a Wisconsin grain cooperative, with one willful safety violation for failing to protect workers from falls while they were loading grain products into rail cars at its Evansville facility. Proposed fines total $70,000.

“Failing to protect employees from falls while loading rail cars is a clear violation of OSHA’s fall protection standards and demonstrates a disregard for worker safety,” said Kim Stille, the agency’s area director in Madison. “Employers have a responsibility to ensure that workers have proper safety protection, and work environments are healthful and safe.”

The citation follows an investigation in September, prompted by a complaint, which determined employees were working on top of rail cars without fall protection while preparing the cars for loading of corn and soybeans. A willful violation is one committed with intentional, knowing or voluntary disregard for the law’s requirement, or plain indifference to employee safety and health.

In 2010, OSHA developed a local emphasis program targets grain handling facilities after repeated safety violations were cited in the industry. The program covers hazards associated with grain engulfment, machine guarding, lockout/tagout of dangerous equipment to prevent accidental energization start-up, electricity, falls, employee training and combustible dust hazards.

Landmark Services Cooperative is a member-owned wholesale grain cooperative. The company is headquartered in Cottage Grove and operates multiple divisions at 20 facilities in south central Wisconsin. Prior to this investigation, the company had been inspected by OSHA a total of three times since 2006. A willful safety violation was issued in 2006 after an employee became engulfed in grain.

via 2012 – 02/23/2012 – US Labor Department’s OSHA cites Landmark Services Cooperative in Evansville, Wis., for failing to protect workers loading rail cars from falls.

These three boys are in the schoolyard bragging of how great their fathers are.

The first one says: “Well, my father runs the fastest. He can fire an arrow, and start to run, I tell you, he gets there before the arrow”.

The second one says: “Ha! You think that’s fast! My father is a hunter. He can shoot his gun and be there before the bullet”.

The third one listens to the other two and shakes his head. He then says: “You two know nothing about fast. My father is a safety consultant. He stops working at 4:30 and he is home by 3:45″!!

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safety photos
Safety photos and a few safety jokes – Original jokes are copyright

A Fife skip hire operator was given 140 hours community service at Dunfermline Sheriff Court yesterday (22 February) for a number of waste offences at his site in Saline.

Mr Ronald Noble Mentiplay, trading as Murray Mentiplay, pled guilty on 17 June 2011 to:

knowingly permitting controlled waste, namely household commercial and industrial waste, to be deposited without a waste management licence in place:
accepting items of special waste, including televisions, refrigerators and freezers, onto the site;
failing to provide information on waste carried and transferred.

Sentencing was deferred to allow Mr Mentiplay time to clear the site, and to receive update reports from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) on progress. The sentence was reduced from 210 hours community service for an early guilty plea and because progress has been made on site since his last court appearance.

Mr Mentiplay had the waste management licence for his site at Rhynd House, Saline, suspended by SEPA on 24 September 2009. This meant no further waste could be accepted on site. However, numerous, frequent inspections between 24 September 2009 and 20 April 2010 showed that new loads of waste were being brought onto the site and there was still a large stockpile of waste there. The stockpile extended beyond the area covered by the waste management licence.

SEPA officers advised Mr Mentiplay during every visit that the suspension of his licence meant that he could no longer accept new waste on site. Items discovered on the site included fresh green waste, soil and sand material, blue office screens, green commercial signage, numerous black bin bags, white goods, a bank statement, a toilet, construction waste and hub caps. SEPA officers also witnessed special waste including fridges and freezers being stored on Mr Mentiplay’s site as well as televisions and computer monitors on the stockpile of waste.

Officers asked for copies of waste transfer notes from Mr Mentiplay, which he supplied. However examination of them showed that they did not contain all the required information.

via Fife businessman given communi.