Worker suffers severed finger at plastics firm

Date:

17 January 2012

Release No:

HSE/296/EM

A plastics firm which manufactures cases for computer games has been fined after an employee severed his finger in machinery at a factory in Corby.

The worker, who has asked not to be named, was trying to fix a problem on a colour dosing unit attached to an injection moulding machine at DuBois Ltd's premises in Arkwright Road when the middle finger on his left hand became trapped in the rotating dial used to add colour to the plastic.

Doctors were unable to save his finger and it had to be amputated just above the knuckle. He was off work for several weeks and required physiotherapy for almost 10 months.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the incident, which happened on 22 May 2010, found the machine's guard had been removed.

DuBois Ltd, trading as AGI Amaray, of Slough Interchange, Whittenham Close, Slough, Berkshire pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11 (1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Today, Corby magistrates fined the firm £7,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £4,677.

After the hearing HSE inspector Sally Harris said:

"The guarding was regularly removed to allow staff to calibrate the machine but it had not been put back. This meant the company did not prevent access to dangerous rotating parts and as a result a man suffered an entirely foreseeable, preventable and painful injury."

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 states: "Every employer shall ensure that measures are taken in accordance with paragraph (2) which are effective- (a) to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery or to any rotating stock-bar; or (b) to stop the movement of any dangerous part of machinery or rotating stock-bar before any part of a person enters a danger zone."

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