567Employee Dies after Being Crushed under Forklift Truck
posted on September 30th, 2009
A construction company was fined after one of its employees was crushed by a forklift truck and was killed instantly.
Shaun Porter, a 31-year-old employee of Trackline (International) Ltd, was driving his truck in order to transport steel equipment. He was attempting to elevate the forks of his truck over a big vehicle frame that was blocking the gangway. His co-workers saw that he might have a collision with the frame and they shouted at him to stop. Porter tried to apply the brakes but the truck spun around and turned over. As he tried to escape by jumping out, the truck fell on him and crushed him, killing him on the spot.
The post mortem revealed that Porter’s death was a result of his organs getting crushed due to the impact of the truck falling on him.
For not meeting the regulations of Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, Trackline (International) Ltd was fined a sum of £7,500 at Lincoln Crown Court and was asked to pay £6,690 towards costs. The company was held responsible for failing to provide proper safety measurements and having a faulty organisational system. It also had very unsafe arrangements for using forklift trucks for construction purposes.
The HSE also found that there was no clearly demarcated area for access ways in the site and there was no method in place to find out the weight of the loads being transported from one place to another. In addition, the employees had not been assigned specific routes or passages to move.
Every company must consider the risks involved when pedestrians and vehicles work together in an area to provide necessary safety on the basis of the directive of the HSE. Workplace Law Group specialises in employment law, health and safety and premises management - click on NEBOSH Health & Safety - for training to help you comply with the law and manage people in the workplace.
