Worker's left hand severed at Knowsley factory

Date:

28 March 2011

Release No:

HSE/NW/95MatrixPolymers

The owner of a Knowsley factory has been fined for safety failings after a worker's left hand was severed in a plastics mixing machine.

Matrix Polymers was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the incident at its factory on Caddick Road in Prescot on 2 April 2009.

Knowsley Magistrates' Court heard that Gary McKeown, aged 42 from Widnes, had been emptying plastic granules from a hatch at the bottom of a blender when his hand got caught in rotating parts and was sheared off. Doctors were able to reattach his hand but he lost his fingers and thumb.

A HSE investigation found that the locking mechanism on the machine had been broken for more than a year, and that a wire mesh guard over the hatch had been tied back. The safety mechanism should have stopped the machine operating when the guard was not in place.

Matrix Polymers pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 by failing to prevent access to dangerous machine parts.

The company, of Tenter Road, Northampton, was fined £3,500 and ordered to pay £3,500 in costs on 25 March 2011.

Harry Baker, the investigating inspector at HSE, said:

"This was a devastating, life-changing injury for Mr McKeown who has been unable to return to work for almost two years now due to the trauma he endured.

"The locking mechanism on the machine had been broken for up to 18 months, but nothing was done by Matrix Polymers to get it repaired. The machine was in use every day, for up to 24 hours a day, so it was almost inevitable that someone would eventually be injured.

"It is vital that manufacturing firms make sure that dangerous parts on machines are properly guarded to prevent further injuries of this kind."

A total of 25 workers were killed and more than 4,000 suffered major injuries in the manufacturing industry in Great Britain last year. Information on preventing injuries is available at www.hse.gov.uk/manufacturing.

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. Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: "Every employer shall ensure that measures are taken in accordance which are effective to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery or to any rotating stock-bar."

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