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A worker at a farming compnay in Fife had to have his toes amputated after they became trapped in machinery on the 4th of September 2009.
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A worker at a farming company in Fife had to have two of his toes amputated after they became trapped in machinery on 4 September 2009.
The worker had been attempting to remove water from a grain reception pit when his foot got caught up in the screw auger mechanism inside the pit. The screw auger consists of a large screw inside a metal tube and is used to rotate and mix the grain. The top part of the screw auger is uncovered and the worker's toes were unfortunately placed in this area.
Although the screw auger was not initially turned on, the worker's colleague was cleaning out another grain reception pit which required him to turn on the screw auger conveyor which had the function of disposing with the leftover grain. However he mistakenly switched on the screw auger for the grain reception pit of the accident victim causing the screw auger to rotate and inflict serious injury.
The small toe of the injured worker was severed in the accident and he required surgery to have another toe amputated and to remove metal splints from his foot.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the accident and declared that no specific risk assessment had been carried out for any workplace tasks inside the grain reception pit. A general workplace risk assessment document did exist however and stated that any machines with unprotected parts should not be cleaned unless turned off, although it transpired that the injured worker had not been granted access to the document and was unaware of it.
The HSE investigator stated "If the company had carried out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment and provided a safe system of work for the task of cleaning inside the grain reception pit, then this incident would not have happened." He added "Power to the screw auger in the grain reception pit should have been isolated before an employee attempted to enter and clean it, it was not sufficient to simply turn the machinery off."
On 11 October 2011 Kirkcaldy Court fined the company £20,000 for breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act. The injured worker no longer works for the company.
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Contact Information
Katie Brown
SMPR (Simply Marcomms Ltd)
18 Generator Hall
Coventry
CV1 4JL
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