Two companies, Norland Managed Services and Balfour Beatty, have been fined a total of £380,000 by the British courts following the electrocution and death of a contractor.
The man in question, 27-year-old cable jointer Martin Walton, was working at the Morgan Stanley data center in London. He accidentally managed to come into contact with a 415V live terminal and died. This happened in 2010, while Walton was employed by Integrated Cable Services Ltd and contracted by Balfour Beatty.
The reason for the death was ruled as a management mistake. The work being carried out involved adding a new uninterruptible power supply to the data center. Norland Managed Services was the company in charge of the mechanical and electrical systems there, control that was handed to Balfour Beatty while the work was carried out.
The HSE, having assessed what caused the accident, found that no one involved understood fully what work was being carried out. This led to Mr Walton working next to a live cable without knowing it was live. This was not the fault of the contractor, but that of the two principal companies involved: Balfour Beatty and Norland.
The fine relates to breaching two sections of the Health and Safety Work Act. Balfour Beatty must pay £280,000 and Norland pays the other £100,000.
Datacenter Dynamics
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