One waste management employee recently fell off the roof of a truck while on the job, prompting him to possibly make a work accident claim for the injuries he sustained in the fall.
According to personal injury claims experts familiar with the incident, Blackburn Magistrates’ Court was recently informed how the forty four year old employee of Neales Waste Management Ltd had been providing his assistance in emptying a skip in Guide, Blackburn, at the Walker Industrial Park. However, waste that had spilled from the skip, which had been over-filled, had become lodged on the roof of the collection vehicle, prompting the worker to scale the truck via several metal bars that had been attached to it.
The worker, whose name has been withheld, plummeted to the ground below when the fixings on the bars failed. As a result, he sustained severe injuries from the fall, which included a damaged foot and a broken right elbow.
The Health and Safety Executive investigated the incident, discovering that the waste management company had erroneously assumed that the truck’s metal bars could be used in lieu of a ladder, even though that was not the case. As a result of the HSE’s prosecution, Neales Waste Management entered a guilty plea in court, admitting to breaching health and safety regulations and being told to pay a £15,000 fine and £11,661 in court costs.
After the hearing at Blackburn Magistrates’ Court, one inspector for the HSE remarked that the waste management company should have done more to prevent its employees from attempting to clamber up its vehicles in such a manner.