Industry news
Finger loss building firm fined
Posted Fri, 16 Jul
A West Midlands building firm has been fined after one of its workers lost part of a finger during an incident involving a rubber conveying machine last year.
Building Adhesives, from Trentham, near Stoke, was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £4,000 costs towards the prosecution for failing to ensure the machine was properly safeguarded prior to the incident in July 2009.
Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates' Court heard how the firm had replaced a fixed guard protecting employees from moving mechanical parts within the machine with an interlocking guard, which allowed users to access the screw conveyor.
The worker, who did not want to be named, had to have his middle finger amputated past the first knuckle after damaging it while loading rubber-filled fabric bags into the hopper for distribution around the factory.
Building Adhesives pleaded guilty to breaching the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
Health and Safety Executive Inspector Mhairi Duffy said: "This incident would have been prevented had the guarding on the machine been fitted properly, or if there had been adequate systems in place to detect the failed guard before the accident.
"The fixed guard had been replaced with an incorrectly fitted interlocked guard meaning this was an incident waiting to happen.
"This man sustained serious injury and he was lucky that it was not worse."
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