National furniture firm prosecuted after employee's arm crushed

Date:

7 March 2013

Release No:

HSE/M/68/13

A Nuneaton-based furniture firm has been fined for safety breaches after a worker suffered multiple fractures when his arm was drawn around a paper roll on a gluing machine.

The employee, who does not wish to be named, was working on a line where glue is sprayed on to furniture panels at Hammonds Furniture Ltd, at Nutts Lane, Hinckley, when the incident happened on 13 February 2012.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigated, told Leicester Magistrates' Court today (7 March) that the company had increased the size of the roll of paper, used to catch the overspray glue, without assessing the risks of the change or training workers in a new method of changing the new rolls.

As a result the workers developed their own unsafe method to do this and the injured worker copied the methods used by his colleagues.

The employee's arm was drawn into the workings of the machine as he attempted to change a roll. He was freed 40 minutes later by firefighters and suffered three fractures to his forearm.

The court heard that the employee has tried to return to work after his recovery but had been too traumatised by the incident to stay.

Hammonds Furniture Ltd, of Nuneaton, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £7,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,695.

After the hearing HSE inspector Neil Ward said:

"Hammonds Furniture failed to properly assess any new risks to the workforce as a result of the changes they implemented or to develop a safe way of working and train the staff accordingly.

"The ease with which the company very quickly put in a safe method of work after the incident demonstrated that this incident was entirely avoidable.

"The unsafe method of work had been going on for some months without being tackled by any management in the firm and as a result a young man has suffered a great deal of physical and mental pain."

Further information on working safely with workplace equipment can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/work-equipment-machinery/user.htm

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce 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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