John Martin Riva has been fined for his work on a chimney.  This led to safety and health breaches.  He has been fined £15,000 after breaking Sections 33 and 3 (1) of the safety and health act.  Riva was contracted for work on a property in Gifford from August 2009 to October 2009.  He was asked to rebuild a chimney; however, he did not get all of the debris and masonry materials out of the chimney.  Instead, he left the debris in there creating a block so that when a fire was lit it created carbon monoxide and smoke into the home.  Fumes built up and the home occupants were exposed to the poisonous gas.  Unfortunately, the 60-year-old Ceridwen Ross who was one of the exposed died.

It was a clear health and safety breach on the part of the worker.  He did not properly carry out the work or perform checks to ensure no health and safety issues were left behind.  This is why the fine, though seemingly large, is rather small in comparison to the death the family suffered.  It was certainly a preventable incident.  Had Riva checked behind his workers or completed the work on his own then the issues would not have arisen.  He is lucky only one person died rather than all three in this tragedy.

A textile firm located in Bradford has received their sentence.  The sentence was given due to an employee injury that has left the individual with a long-term problem. The worker was on the job for only a month when his hand was injured.  The employee was 30 at the time of the 2011 incident.  He was not working with machines but with a wool sorter.  He did not have health and safety training for the machines or any other machine training.  He was still asked to clean some debris from the machine trays and to get the wool untangled.  This meant he was working around a machine for which he had no training.

While working on the task given to him his hand became caught and dragged into the machine and then became stuck.  The glove shredded and the pressure created a loss of feeling to his hand.  Luckily, he was able to get it out before he lost the hand completely.  He did sustain severe cuts from the tip of his index finger on the right hand to his forearm.  The damage also harmed a nerve.  The health and safety audits conducted because of the incident led to the court proceedings wherein the company is now being fined.  The fine is £5,000 and almost £3,000 in additional costs.  The worker was not trained and therefore should not have been around the machine, making the incident an avoidable one.

A hire company that lets equipment is fined for breaching safety and health rules.  The Swindon-located company provided unsafe working areas and practises for employees and those who let the equipment.  It is known that they ignored repeated health and safety warnings from the HSE.  The HSE served four notices to the company that were ignored.  It was not until 2011 that the notices finally closed down operations when the HSE went in to conduct health and safety audits again.  The notices were given for forklifts, telehandlers, and failing to inspect the equipment before it was hired out.  Anyone using the equipment during a hire job could have been injured because of the state of the equipment’s disrepair.  The notices were to help protect employees and consumers from injury, but non-compliance was found after the notices were served.

The company was found guilty of three different breaches of Section 33(1) of the safety and health at work act.  The fine was £800 with £1,215 pounds in additional costs.  It seems a small fine for such a severe violation.  The company was definitely aware of safety considerations, but they are only seeing a small fine.  Perhaps it is because no one was injured while the company ignored the warnings and the fine will be enough of a lesson that it will never happen again.  If not the court may need to levy a larger fine and more stern warnings later on.

A worker was crushed to death because of a printing company issue.  There were serious health and safety breaches at the marketing company.  They have been ordered to pay £118,000 in fines and other costs due to the death.  The company has about 700 workers throughout nine different sites in the UK.  They were given health and safety warnings but ignored them.  This is what led to the death of one 49-year-old worker.  The worker became trapped in a hand fed press in 2008.  He was pronounced dead on scene.  It was stated that he was using the press to make signs on corrugated cards.  Although details of the entire incident are not known, it is thought the worker was climbing on top of a moveable section to get some waste out of the improperly fed machine.  He then became trapped being crushed by the press.

The HSE investigated the incident and found that the company did not act on warnings given due to a similar death at another company the year before.  Another company had an issue with the hand-fed press and the HSE sent out warnings about how things could be fixed.  Unfortunately, the company decided not to take the warnings seriously and it led to a death of one of their own workers.  The incident was completely avoidable if the company had taken steps to make certain the machine would not have an issue with feeding paper through it.

A gas installer from Norwich has been given an eight-month jail sentence.  It is a suspended sentence going on time already served.  He is also going to have to conduct 250 hours of community service that will be unpaid.  He was given this sentence for endangering a mother and daughter at their home.  He was asked to work on gas appliances, but the work was not conducted properly.  The task was to install a new boiler and the pipe work that goes along with the gas boiler.  The work was contracted in 2010.  Two days after the work was completed the homeowner turned on the electric kettle in her kitchen.  The home exploded, leaving her and her daughter to suffer from extreme burns.

The incident could have left both of them dead.  The HSE was called in for health and safety audits of the work and any other work he may have conducted.  It was found that a joint at the emergency control valve was not fitted properly, so gas was leaking in to the home.  The gas then leaked throughout the home and kitchen.  As soon as she turned on the kettle, the explosion occurred.  Gas fitting is serious work and requires proper health and safety training along with proper gas fitting training.  The worker did not have the knowledge to do the work properly.  He put lives at risk and will now serve jail time and pay a fine of over £100,000 for his shoddy work.

Construction companies are being asked to attend a free event being hosted in Central Scotland.  The event is about health and safety in the construction industries. It is part of a new protocol to get construction companies to take health and safety training seriously in order to avoid workplace accidents in the industry.  The construction industry indicates that about 75% of workers that are injured or killed on building sites are from medium to small sized businesses.  It is why these smaller companies are being asked to attend the event in Blackridge in June.

The HSE is working with the Working Well Together Campaign to raise awareness about safety and health.  There are numerous parts to the event including how to manage ground work as this is where many are injured or killed.  Working from heights is another large concern such as falling to one’s death or sustaining a major injury.  In terms of ground work, many suffer injuries or death because pedestrians are in an area of moving vehicles and the driver may have a blind spot where they are unable to see the person walking.  Trench work, working in confined spaces, and buried services are also going to be focused on.  Trenches can also collapse, burying individuals alive.  These issues are some of the most important in terms of making certain that fewer accidents happen on construction sites.  The event is working to make sure that every business is aware of the dangers in order to correct them.

A worker fell more than five metres while working on a flat roof edge.  The roofing company is fined for the safety and health breaches that created such an incident’s potential.  The worker was 26 at the time of the incident in 2010.  He was working alongside other roofers to fix a flat roof in Strathdon.  The roofing company did specialise in that particular type of roofing work.  Despite being properly hired with the right qualifications, the company still put a worker’s life at risk.  The employee was throwing lead cut-offs to the ground on the edge of the flat roof.  It is suspected he slipped or accidentally stepped off the edge.  This created a lack of balance.  This is why he was able to fall five metres, landing on his side.

Due to the health and safety breach that led to his fall the worker sustained a hip injury requiring a metal plate and four pins to be put between his hip and thigh bone.  He had to be off work for 16 weeks.  Unfortunately, he still experiences pain.  The HSE was brought in to conduct health and safety audits to examine the workplace and the company.  The roofing company was fined £15,000 for breaching the regulations.  They were found guilty of breaching Regulation 4 of the 2005 law regarding working at heights.  The employer could have avoided the issue by ensuring workers were safe at heights with proper edging on the roof or secure lines to hold them on the roof.

An apprentice electrician was hurt falling during work on a loft space at Swindon youth centre.  Richard O’Connor was employed by Robert and Prowse.  The employer failed to carry out workstation risk assessments to prevent any safety and health issues.  The failure to conduct risk assessments for work at height put workers at risk.  It was the reason the apprentice electrician was harmed during the work.  The HSE was brought in to conduct health and safety audits after the incident.  The worker was 18 at the time of the incident in 2010.  He was working to install electric at the Platform Youth Centre when he stumbled on a walkway.  He fell off the walkway onto plasterboard that could not sustain his weight.  He tried to grab a joist, but that also gave way allowing him to fall 5.5 metres to the next floor.

The injuries sustained include three fractures of vertebrae, cuts, and bruising.  He was out of work for two months due to the injuries.  He could have easily died from the fall, but due to grabbing whatever he could on the way down he was able to walk away with a few injuries but no permanent damage.  Working at heights is always risky.  This is why proper risk assessments need to be carried out.  The company has received a fine of £5,000 along with a similar amount in additional costs.  The additional costs cover the court case and any witnesses that had to be called.

Dangers in the work place create situations where workers could be potentially injured.  It is up to the employer to examine the work place for any risks that exist.  Speaking with a consultant is one way to make certain the workstation risk assessments are complete so that they may be followed.  Unfortunately, there was a health and safety breach at one construction company.  A worker’s foot was injured because of foot traffic being in an area of moving vehicles.

The incident happened in 2011 in a situation where the worker had his foot run over by a lorry on site.  The worker was doing his job when the lorry moving through the site was too close, creating the issue.  The truck was heading to a compacting machine with stone.  The driver of the truck was trying to make his way around the site and obstacles when he was unable to see the worker nearby.  The worker tried to avoid the incident, but was unable to move quickly enough to avoid the foot injury.  He had at least four broken bones in his foot that took quite a while to heal.  The firm did admit to breaches with health and safety, most particularly violation of Section 22 and Section 3.

The firm has been charged £10,000 for the incident along with a little over half the amount in court costs.  Incidents such as these happen more often than they should.  This is why the HSE is very careful in their audits.

A firm has been sentenced for safety issues after a roofer fell from scaffolding in Trafford.  The worker received bad injuries during the fall of three metres. The scaffold did not have a safety rail.  The incident happened to a 44 year old in 2011.  He landed on a flat garage roof from the scaffolding.  He suffered a dislocated knee and broken bones in his right leg due to the fall.  As always, the health and safety executive was on hand to conduct health and safety audits of the incident to determine if there was any fault.

The HSE gave out six notices to New Generation as soon as they did an investigation.  It was found that the work needed to stop and improvements needed to be made before any other work was conducted.  The health and safety of the site was not there and it could have led to more than one person getting hurt.  The scaffolding was in poor condition.  There were also places in the floors and walls that were unprotected.  This could have created more falls.  The HSE stated that the work was not planned or managed well, and this is what led to the injury of the worker.  The company did plead guilty to three offences that left them paying £3,900 in a fine and £4,000 in court costs for endangering workers’ lives.  Construction is one of the most dangerous professions, especially when working at height.