Firm fined over electric fan fall

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7483817.stm

Version 0 of 1.

An international building materials company has been fined £200,000 after a quarry worker was injured after falling into an electric fan.

Lafarge Cement admitted two offences under health and safety laws at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

Stuart Richardson was left severely injured and permanently scarred after the incident at Dunbar Works in East Lothian in January last year.

He has since returned to work for the company as a reliability inspector.

The court heard how Mr Richardson underwent emergency surgery to repair skeletal damage to his face, needed bone plates and screws to his mouth and his left ear was later amputated.

The welder was left with scars to his arms and rib cage and is still unable to eat and drink properly due to loss of control of his lower lip following the incident, on 29 January, 2007.

This was a wholly avoidable accident, that is accepted by the company quite properly and I was impressed by the way the company have made no excuses as is regularly the case Sheriff Kenneth Maciver

Mr Richardson, who had worked at the quarry for nine years, was asked to help a colleague with a motor on the quarry's stacker machine, which crushes limestone to make cement.

The electric fan on the motor was left uncovered and Mr Richardson became entangled in it when it was switched on.

Fiscal depute Angie Main said, because Mr Richardson could not remember what happened, it was unclear whether he slipped on mud and fell into the fan or became caught up while trying to prevent a cable being caught in the blades.

He was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and later transferred to St Johns' Hospital in Livingston for specialist treatment.

A health and safety inspector who examined the site the day after the accident said there was no sufficient system of work in place at the time and that neither of the men - nor a third man who was operating the controls of the motor during the accident - had had any training in risk assessment.

'Most regrettable'

The company, which employs 150 people at the Dunbar plant and 1,500 in the UK, then began training its staff and tightened its safety procedures, the court heard.

Lafarge pleaded guilty to failing to provide employees with adequate training, instruction and supervision for the task in that it was carried out without appropriate guards in place and admitted failing to make suitable assessment of the risks.

Sheriff Kenneth Maciver said: "I'm satisfied and I think the Health and Safety Executive is satisfied that steps have been taken."

But he added: "This was a wholly avoidable accident, that is accepted by the company quite properly and I was impressed by the way the company have made no excuses as is regularly the case."

Duncan Mawby, representing Lafarge said: "This was a most regrettable incident which should never have happened.

"This is an accident that the company accepts was preventable and the company accepts full responsibility for what occurred.

"Lessons have been learned and an incident such as this should never occur again."