One Lancashire based animal feed producer may be facing a work accident claim after one of its employees lost two of his fingers in an unfortunate incident.
Accident claim experts say that the unnamed worker, whose identity has been withheld for legal and privacy reasons, had been employed at the Clitheroe factory of Dugdale Nutrition Ltd when the incident occurred. The forty seven year old employee had been working on clearing a blockage in a piece of the factory’s machinery on the building’s third storey when one of his colleagues, who was stationed in the ground floor control room of the manufacturing plant, switched on the machine.
The injured employee’s personal injury claims say that two of his fingers were severed during the incident. Afterwards, the Government’s Health and Safety Executive investigated the manufacturing plant, discovering that the worker had neglected to isolate the machine and had only been granted access to the moving parts of the machine because there had been no safety guard fixed on it.
The HSE prosecuted the animal feed producer at Accrington Magistrates’ Court, where Salthill-based Dugdale Nutrition Ltd, of Bellman Mill, was handed down a £7,000 fine. Dugdale Nutrition, who admitted breaching the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations twice, was also held to be responsible for £3,614 in legal fees in addition to its fine.
More than 4,000 employees working within the manufacturing sector sustained serious personal injuries over the past 12 months, according to the most recent official figures. Many of these injured workers go on to make personal injury claims against their employers for their pain and suffering.