A drill without a safety guard seriously hurt an engineering worker who can now no longer work because of his injuries.
Michael O’Brien, 60, will never be able to move three of his fingers again. He was drilling holes in a steel plate while installing machinery at a factory in Leyland back in December 2009 when his hand got caught in a device which holds the drill bit in place.
Mr O’Brien has not been able to return to his job since the accident.
Investigators discovered his employer, Jex Engineering Company, did not see that the safety guard was missing from the drill both when it hired it and when it gave it to Mr O’Brien to use. The safety officials also found that the firm had completed an assessment form for the work and had stated the drill did have a guard on it.
Jex, based in Wakefield, admitted its failure to prevent access to dangerous machine parts, under regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
South Ribble Magistrates’ Court in Leyland fined the company £4,000 and told it to pay the prosecution’s costs of £3,250.
Medico-Legal News Source: Claims Management Magazine
