Worker suffers serious crush injuries at recycling firm

Date:

23 July 2012

Release No:

HSE/EM/93

A Derbyshire recycling firm has been fined after an employee was crushed in a machine at their depot at Griffon Road, Ilkeston.

Thomasz Hac was working for Donald Ward Limited (trading as Ward Recycling) when the incident happened on 17 June 2009. Mr Hac and a colleague were attempting to clear a blockage from a 'fragmentiser', which crushes and shreds scrapped cars for recycling. They were working inside the machine, having opened a canopy to gain access, when a car, which had been trapped in the upper part of the machine, slid down and landed on top of Mr Hac.

He suffered severe abdominal crush injuries and broke his shoulder blade and four ribs. He returned to work at the site in September 2009 but has since left the company.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found there was no safe system of work in place and the incident could have been easily prevented.

Donald Ward Limited (trading as Ward Recycling), of Rawdon Works, Moira Road, Woodville, Nr. Burton on Trent, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Today, Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court fined the firm £20,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £19,970.

After the hearing HSE inspector Sarah Jardine said:

"The work Mr Hac and his colleague were carrying out had not been thought through. The company should have foreseen the risks and devised a safe way of removing blockages that didn't involve workers being put in the way of something that was likely to move. As a result of the company's failings a man has suffered terrible injuries."

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."

Press enquiries

Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office.

Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by the Regional News Network