A company that manage to crush an employee while trying to move an excavator bucket has been fined £100,000.
David Vinsome sustained multiple rib fractures as well as internal injuries, including an abdominal wall burst, following the incident at Pallion Shipyard on 18th October 2022.
The 37-year-old from North Shields was crushed between an excavation bucket and a fabrication table.
Following an investigation, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Midland Steel Traders Ltd.
At the time of the incident, welders had been using an overhead gantry crane and a fork lift truck in tandem to rotate a large excavator bucket. David Vinsome was crushed as he attempted to attach the chains from the overhead crane to the bucket, and a fork lift truck started the lifting operation, unaware of his position behind it.
Vinsome spent nine days in hospital with his injuries and has still not been able to return to work. “I don’t think I will go back to welding,” he said.
The HSE investigation found that Midland Steel Traders Ltd had failed to ensure that the lifting activity was properly planned by a competent person, or carried out in a safe manner. It also failed to establish a safe system of work for this activity – leading to a breakdown of communication between the multiple operators involved.
HSE inspector Matthew Dundas said: “Lifting operations can often put people at great risk, as well as incurring great costs when they go wrong. It is therefore important to properly resource, plan and organise lifting operations so they are carried out in a safe manner. Had that been done in this case then Mr Vinsome wouldn’t have been so seriously injured.”
Midland Steel Traders Ltd, of Portobello Industrial Estate in Chester le Street, pleaded guilty to breaching the Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The company was fined £100,000 and told to pay £4,916 costs at Newcastle Magistrates Court on 13th February 2025.
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