by David Carter
12 October 2010
A firm has been fined £20,000 after lapses in health and safety led to an employee suffering a head injury.
Fineline, a lighting company based in Bristol, were found guilty of breaching reg 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
Employee Rolf Weber sustained a minor head injury in February this year when he entered part of the working area of a lathe to remove a finished work piece. He inadvertently caught his head on a rotating cutter mechanism, which was rotating at 18,000 rpm. Although his injuries were relatively light, the Health and Safety Executive, in a press release, said it was pure luck that he wasn’t more seriously hurt or even killed.
The HSE’s Christine Haberfield said,
"It is vital that dangerous machinery is properly safeguarded. In this case, the cutting area should have been enclosed with doors that were linked to the operation of the machine to prevent anybody going into the danger area while the machine was running. People can help prevent similar accidents by checking machinery safeguards regularly, to make sure that they are still working correctly."