Fuel injection specialists fined after worker injured

Date:

21 March 2012

Release No:

HSE/EM/322/12

A firm specialising in diesel fuel injection has been fined after a worker was set on fire at its Derbyshire premises.

The 23-year-old apprentice mechanic had been with Swadlincote Diesel Fuel Injection Services Ltd for 18 months. On 16 March 2009, he and another employee were burning rubbish in an old drum. In order to get the fire going, the second man poured waste fuel on to it, causing an explosion. The apprentice was able to get his arms up to cover his face but the overalls he was wearing caught fire and he burned his arms, hands and neck.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigated the incident, today told Derby Magistrates' Court that the company did not have a safe system of work for handling, storing or using flammable substances.

After today's hearing, HSE inspector Edward Walker said:

"This was an injury waiting to happen. Fuel should never be added to a fire. The waste fuel ideally should have been drained into a sealed, labelled container and then put into a locked storage area unless it was to be returned to the vehicle as soon as possible after repairs. Instead it was in an unlabelled container and had been left at the entrance to the workshop. As a result a young man has suffered unnecessarily."

Swadlincote Diesel Fuel Injection Services Ltd, of Ryder Close, Cadley Hill Industrial Estate, Swadlincote, pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £4,000.

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. Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: 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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