Company cited over lack of safe systems or work.
A Nottinghamshire demolition company has been fined after a worker suffered severe injuries when he was hit by a falling excavator bucket on his first day on site.
Labourer James Wilson, of Misterton, was working for Bloom Plant Ltd on a demolition site on Kilton Road, Worksop, on 10 January 2011.
Wilson, who was 46 when the incident happened, lost his left eye and part of his scalp. He also broke his eye socket, cheekbone, jaw, nose, left collarbone, several ribs and his left leg. He also punctured a lung and severed the nerves on his bottom lip.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found Bloom Plant Ltd had no safe systems of work in place and had not given Mr Wilson adequate information, instruction, training or supervision including adequate warnings of the hazards involved when working around plant.
Nottingham Crown Court was told that employees should have been excluded from the area while the bucket was being re-attached and a safety pin used to secure it in place.
Bloom Plant Ltd, of Askham Road, East Markham, Newark, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc act 1974 by failing to provide and maintain safe systems of work and to provide adequate information, instruction, training or supervision. Today (22 November) the company was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay costs of £27,500.
