An industrial door company in Scotland was recently fined £165,000 following an accident that led to the death of one of their employees after his hoodie top became entangled in the mechanism of a roller door he was servicing and wound around the spring, choking him. His colleague ran to his aid and managed to cut his top off with a knife, but the worker had already slipped into unconsciousness. He was rushed to
hospital where he spent three days in intensive care before life support was removed.
His cause of death was stated as hypoxic brain injury and mechanical asphyxia after he suffered a brain stem hemorrhage.
There were multiple health and safety management failings that the business admitted to including failing to provide the necessary information, instruction, training and supervision to ensure the safety of its personnel when working with the door springs in question. The company had repeatedly told workers not to wear loose clothing and had supplied black boiler suits for them to wear. However, there was not a formal policy in place to enforce this.
This horrific accident also sheds light on the lack of safe systems of work with controls that could have been implemented to prevent this from occurring, these could include, but not limited to,
- Identifying workplace hazard and evaluating the associated risks.- This was a known hazard to the business, hence the implementation of the boiler suits however, this was not written into a formal policy and evidently not enforced.
- Each task should have a suitable risk assessment carried out in the form of a Task Analysis (TA) or Safe Working Method Statement (SWMS) that has been produced with input from the workers and agreed by management and workers prior to the works commencing.
- In addition to the business risk assessment, workers should also conduct a prestart meeting to identify any additional hazards on a particular job through the use of a Prestart Meeting template or Take 5 process where they can then implement additional controls specific to the task and environment including replanning the works if the controls do not reduce the residual risk to a tolerable level.
- Safe Operating Procedures in place and communicated to all staff to provide employees with the relevant information, training and instruction on how to complete the task safely.
- Worker Induction- Workers should be inducted to all workplaces, particularly when carried out in a new place or premises that is not where they would normally operate.
- The worker was alone during this accident which raises questions on the supervision levels of the workers, bearing in mind that the victim was described as experienced, doesn’t negate the requirement of supervision.
- Training and Competency- Keeping up to date records of all workers training and competencies to ensure employees have the right knowledge and skills to carry out the works safely.
- Lone worker policy- The company was aware that this was a hazard so this could have been prevented had his work colleague been with him at all times.
- Lock out/Tag out procedures. Are workers and other people involved in the task aware of the process such as,
- Communicating and agreeing the process with other parties affected by the works.
- What needs isolating and when.
- Permits required.
- Confirmation testing of isolations by a competent person.
- Rescue Plan and emergency response. All task risk assessments should consider what to do in the event of an emergency.
- What rescue equipment is required?
- Is additional access equipment required for a rescue?
- Do you require trained rescuers or first aid trained responders?
- Do you have suitable first aid kits?
- Is firefighting equipment required?
- Nearest A&E?
- Do you have suitable means of communication to alert emergency services?
- If working in a confined space, additional risk assessment and rescue considerations would need to be made.
- Health and safety system auditing- Workplace auditing should be regularly carried out to ensure that all identified safe systems of works are sufficient for the task, the controls are still relevant, and all employees are working in compliance of these. Changes to these systems to be made where gaps are identified. Remember the PLAN- DO-CHECK-ACT cycle.
If you would like any assistance in reviewing these processes or simply fine tuning your current procedures, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
