Following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Donald Ward Limited, trading as Ward Recycling, pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety law at Southern Derbyshires Magistrates Court.
The ruling yesterday (July 23) saw the firm fined 20,000 and ordered to pay 19,970 in costs.
Thomasz Hac was working for the firm when the incident occurred on June 17 2009. The HSE said Mr Hac and a colleague were attempting to clear a blockage from a ‘fragmentiser’, a machine that crushes and shreds scrapped cars for recycling. The pair was 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.
Investigation
The HSEs investigation found that there was no safe system of work in place and said that the incident could have easily been prevented.
Commenting on the case 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.”
Unforeseen
A statement issued by Ward Recycling said: Ward Recycling consider the welfare of its employees to be of paramount importance and we are obviously very concerned that Mr Hac was involved in an accident whilst working at one of our sites.
External Health and Safety consultants had been employed to assess all risks on the new fragmentiser but unfortunately this was an unforeseen eventuality. Discussions with the machines manufacturer have confirmed that they have no record of an event like this happening before, despite having installed over 300 machines around the world.
The statement continued: We are pleased to be able to report that Mr Hac made a full recovery from his injuries.
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