A North Yorkshire-based construction company has admitted
safety failings that led to one of its employees suffering a fractured skull
and eight broken ribs in a four-metre fall.
The 50 year-old construction worker, from Masham, was using
a saw to cut through steel sheets of a mezzanine floor when he started to
unbalance. He threw the saw through a hole in the metal framework and then fell
himself, hitting the concrete floor below.
The incident, on 7 August 2012 at a unit on the Pool
Business Park on the outskirts of Leeds, was investigated by the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE), which prosecuted Ripley-based HACS Construction Ltd at
Leeds Magistrates’ Court.
The court heard the firm had been contracted to lower the
mezzanine floor it had previously installed. The injured worker and a colleague
had already broken up and disposed of all the concrete and were working on
removing the steel sheeting, working in sections and dropping the cut metal to
the floor below.
At one point as a steel sheet fell, the employee felt his
boot getting closer to an open edge, looked through the hole he had created and
felt a panic. He threw the saw through the hole and then fell himself. Although
he sustained multiple injuries, he has since been able to return to work.
Magistrates heard HSE found the HACS Construction Ltd had
not put any precautions in place to prevent falls from the mezzanine level
during the work. The safety harnesses they had provided to the two workers were
unsuitable and neither had been given training in how to use them.
HACS Construction Ltd of Nidderdale House, Station Yard,
Ripley, Harrogate, was fined a total of £16,000 and ordered to pay £7,847
towards costs after admitting two breaches of the Work at Height Regulations
2005.
After the hearing, HSE Inspector Andy Denison said:
“It is shocking that some construction firms – which are
well aware of the high levels of death and injury in their sector as well as
the risks involved – are still not fully considering the safety of site
workers. NEBOSH
Certificate in Construction Health & Safety
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