Fife company fined after lathe crushes worker's leg

Date:

24 February 2012

Release No:

SCO/023/12

A Fife engineering company has been fined £10,000 after a lathe weighing more than a tonne toppled onto a worker's leg.

Craig Stewart, 21, worked for AG Brown Ltd, a metal fabrication company which specialises in making stairs and other metal products for the oil and gas industries and general construction industry.

Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard that on 26 May 2010, Mr Stewart was working with a colleague to move a 1.2 tonne lathe from a workshop on Cavendish Way, Glenrothes, to one of the company's other workshops on Rutherford Road, Glenrothes.

Mr Stewart and his colleague decided to lift the lathe using a lifting eye and a fabric sling hooked over the forks of a fork lift truck. However, the doorway of the workshop was not high enough to move the fork lift truck through it with the forks raised. To overcome this problem, Mr Stewart and his colleague decided to use the fork lift truck to move the lathe as close as possible to the doorway. This would then allow them to lower the lathe onto three skates to move it outside before re-attaching it to the forklift truck for it to be moved to the other workshop.

As his colleague lowered the lathe onto the skates, Mr Stewart noticed that the skate at the heavier chuck end of the lathe was not aligned properly. Mr Stewart crouched down to straighten the skate, but as he did this, the unsecured lathe fell over onto Mr Stewart, crushing his right leg.

He suffered a broken leg and needed surgery to insert a pin the length of his shin. Although he expects to make a full recovery, he has been left with scarring where the pin was inserted. He also needed weekly physiotherapy sessions following the incident and had to give up playing football due to the pain it caused in his leg.

Following the incident, an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that AG Brown Ltd had failed to assess the risks involved in moving the lathe and as a result, there was a lack of planning and supervision which led to Mr Stewart and his colleague devising their own unsafe method to lift and move the lathe.

The investigation also revealed that AG Brown Ltd had purchased four skates the previous year and these had been used in other lifting and moving operations yet only three skates had been provided to Mr Stewart and his colleague on the day of the incident. The investigation also found that the company owned a fork lift truck jib attachment, yet despite this providing a safer method of work than using the lifting sling, it was only after the incident that this was used to lift the lathe.

At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court today, AG Brown Ltd of George Square, Castle Brae, Dunfermline, Fife, was fined £10,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

After sentencing, HSE inspector Jane Scott said:

"The refurbishment sector continues to be the most risky for construction workers, all too often straightforward practical precautions are not considered and workers are put at risk. In many cases, simple changes to working practices can make all the difference.

"It was entirely foreseeable that the lathe could topple when it was placed unsecured on three skates instead of four.

"As moving the lathe was not part of AG Brown's usual business, it did not fall within the scope of the company's existing safety procedures. In identifying that it needed to be moved, the company should have assessed the risks involved and ensured there was a safe system of work in place.

"Instead, Mr Stewart suffered a painful and lasting injury because his employer left him to work unsupervised and without clear instructions about how he was supposed to do the work he'd been asked to."

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: "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."
4. HSE news releases are available at www.hse.gov.uk/press

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