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A worker suffers various injuries after falling from a bucket attached to a telehandler.
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The worker suffered a fractured vertebrae in his back, broken bones in his forearm and a broken thumb in the accident. The accident happened in August 2010 when the worker was employed by Ness Engineering Ltd of Shetland.
He was off work for more than 2 months as a result of the accident.
The project the employee and his colleagues were working on required the dismantling of an aerial mast at a former RAF base in Unst. The court heard that a risk assessment had been carried out by managing director Ronnie Leslie, which said that work should be done from inside the mast.
Unbolted pieces of metal and wood were to be loaded into a telehandler with a bucket attachment, so that they could be safely lowered to the ground. But when the four men on site, including Mr Leslie, encountered unforeseen difficulties in removing a four metre long metal section from within the structure, they deviated from the original work plan by using the telehandler to lift up to the area from the outside.
A decision was made to access it from the bucket which was raised to a position where they could detach the 4-metre long section of metal, rest it on the bucket and lower it to the ground. Mr Leslie had initially questioned that course of action, but did not prevent his men from going ahead. Whilst they were still at a height of 3 metres the section slipped and a smaller piece of metal caught the back of the accident victim's boiler suit, catapulting him out of the bucket and on to the ground.
At Lerwick Sheriff Court Ness Engineering admitted breaching S.2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £26,700.
After the court hearing the Health & Safety Executive's inspector said: "The bucket attachment on the telehandler was not suitable for transporting people and as soon as Ness Engineering allowed their employees to be lifted up in it, the risk assessment they had carried out became meaningless."
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Katie Brown
SMPR (Simply Marcomms Ltd)
18 Generator Hall
Coventry
CV1 4JL
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