Tarmac fined following worker’s hand injury

Firm prosecuted after worker has three fingers severed in inadequately guarded dust-extraction machine

TARMAC Building Products Ltd have been fined £30,000 after an employee severed three fingers in an inadequately guarded dust-extraction machine.

Derby Crown Court heard that the worker was emptying waste dust from the machine’s hopper into a bag at Tarmac’s plant on the Swains Park Industrial Estate, Swadlincote, on 27 September 2012.

Each bag holds approximately three-quarters of a tonne of dust. If the side of the bag folds in the dust will follow the crease in the bag and spill on to the floor.

To avoid this, the worker would periodically lift the sides of the bag. He was standing with his feet in the gaps of the pallet the bag was on and attempted to lift the sides of the bags but lost his balance and fell forwards.

As he put his hand out to stop his fall it landed on the hopper and three fingers of his right hand came into contact with the machine’s rotary valve and were severed. He was off work for nine months.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the dust-extraction unit originally had a fully enclosed recycling system where waste dust was blown back into a silo to be reused. But earlier in 2012 a section from underneath the hopper had been removed to try to solve a contamination problem, which allowed access to the rotary valve.

Wolverhampton-based Tarmac Building Products Ltd pleaded guilty to a breach of Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and were fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £4,999 in costs.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Edward Walker said: ‘This incident could easily have been avoided had an appropriate guard been fitted when the hopper was modified. When modifying machinery and equipment it is important to make a suitable assessment of any increased risk that changes may cause. Tarmac Building Products failed to do that and a man was left with a permanent impairment.’