Bus builder fined after Falkirk worker hit by steel platform

Date:

13 September 2011

Release No:

SCO/080/11

A bus manufacturer has been fined £50,000 after a worker was injured by a bus floor platform which slipped while being lifted into position.

Samuel Murray, 56, from Plains, North Lanarkshire was working in the welding bays of bus body manufacturing firm, Alexander Dennis Ltd, in Falkirk on 16 September 2009.

He had requested a forklift truck driver to lift and transport a steel floor platform weighing nearly 120 kilograms from the goods yard to the welding bays in the chassis shop.

Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that the forklift truck driver placed extensions on to the forks of the truck to move the platform but did not properly secure either the forks or the load. In the chassis shop, the platform was lowered and Mr Murray placed a sling underneath and around the uneven load for it to be manoeuvred onto the chassis. He then looped the sling around one of the extension forks.

Mr Murray, assisted by two other employees, began manually lining up the platform and chassis while the fork lift driver adjusted the angle the forks were tilted at and lowered them slightly. This motion resulted in one end of the sling coming loose causing one end of the platform to swing up and strike Mr Murray on the chin.

Mr Murray sustained a deep cut to his chin, which needed to be stitched and required emergency dental treatment for four broken teeth. He was off work for ten weeks.

Following the incident, a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found Alexander Dennis Ltd had not properly assessed the risks in transporting, handling and positioning floor platforms onto bus chassis. HSE inspectors found workers simply relied on the weight of the platform as the only way of securing it to the forklift truck while transporting it.

The HSE investigation also revealed the company had not provided employees with a safe system of work for the operation. And despite it being a routine task at the firm, no formal training on lifting operations was given; instead it was left to individuals to decide on the method used to line up the floor platform and bus chassis.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Matthew Ramsey said:

"This incident was entirely foreseeable, and if Alexander Dennis Ltd had taken simple steps to identify the hazards in carrying out this routine lifting task, would never have happened.

"Moving the floor platforms and placing them on to the bus chassis was a regular task. Alexander Dennis Ltd should have ensured that their workers had been trained on a safe way of carrying out this routine operation."

Today (13 September 2011) Alexander Dennis Ltd, of Charlotte Square, Edinburgh pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974 and was fined £50,000.

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. In Scotland the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has sole responsibility for the raising of criminal proceedings for breaches of health and safety legislation.
3. Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974 states that: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."

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