Firm fined after reversing lorry crushes worker

Date:

24 November 2011

Release No:

HSE-e-46-11

A Dartford firm has been fined after an employee was seriously injured when he was crushed by a reversing lorry at the KBC Logistics depot in Askews Farm Road, Grays in Essex.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), prosecuting, told Basildon Magistrates' Court that in the early hours of 13 May 2011, driver Leslaw Chorazak, 54, was waiting to take his place at the wheel of the articulated 45ft heavy goods vehicle.

Mr Chorazak was guiding the returning driver as he reversed the lorry into the poorly lit yard. As he bent to pick up his torch, the driver lost sight of him and continued to reverse, crushing him between the back of the lorry and the office wall.

Mr Chorazak, who was living in Wimbledon at the time of the incident but has since returned to his native Poland, suffered severe crush injuries to his right arm, body and collar bone and spent several days in hospital.

HSE's investigation found the yard was poorly lit, there was no means of separating pedestrians and vehicles, there was no proper supervision on site and no health and safety training for the staff working there or their managers.

After the hearing today, HSE Inspector Nicola Surrey said:

"This was a small yard used by a large number of lorries which were often forced to reverse as there was no room to carry out a U-turn.

"It was common practice for employees to wander across the yard from the workshop or from where they parked their cars to the office, to and from the diesel tank and to where the lorries were parked making the yard an extremely dangerous environment.

"Working with moving vehicles is a high risk activity which causes significant numbers of major and fatal injuries every year in this country. Mr Chorazak was seriously injured in this incident and it was only good fortune that it did not end in a fatality."

Last year, 17 workers were killed and more than 530 suffered major injury after being hit by moving vehicles while at work in Great Britain. Of these, two workers were killed and 130 received major injuries resulting specifically from contact with a reversing vehicle.

KBC Logistics Ltd, registered at 117 Dartford Road, Dartford, Kent pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £12,000 with costs of £3,009.80.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. HSE Inspector Nicola Surrey is available for interview.
3. Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974 states: "It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety."
4. Advice and guidance for employers on managing workplace transport safely can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/workplacetransport/index.htm
5. HSE news releases are available at www.hse.gov.uk/press.

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