Company Exposes 13 Employees and Contractors to Asbestos

We've been reminded of the value of a detailed risk assessment this week after it was revealed SSE Hornsea Ltd allowed 13 employees and contractors to be exposed to asbestos fibres.

Hornsea runs a natural gas storage facility on the East Yorkshire coast and tasked a team of maintenance staff with removing a non-return valve from a compressed air distribution system. In order to remove the sealing gasket material, they fitted a wire brush to an electric drill. That worked, but filled the workshop with dust.

It turns out the dust contained chrysotile (white) asbestos, which 13 people had then come into contact with over the course of two days before the danger was revealed and the workshop closed.

The Health and Safety Executive decided to prosecute SSE Hornsea. Not only had the risk assessment failed to identify the asbestos risk, but the records held regarding the non-return valve were inadequate. Also, the maintenance team leader had not undergone asbestos awareness training.

As well as the potential impact this dust could have on the future health of the 13 exposed people, Hornsea now has to pay a £300,000 fine and £12,670.72 in costs. The company pleaded guilty to breaching Sections 2 (1) and 3(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc, Act 1974.

It should go without saying: train your staff! We carry out a range of training courses including asbestos awareness. Please get in touch if you would like to learn more or book places.

Source: HSE

The perils of ignoring good advice

The owner of a stone masonry company has recently been successfully prosecuted by the HSE for failing to protect the health of his employees by exposing them to risks likely to cause long term and possibly life changing conditions.

Two major issues were identified:

• Firstly, the company did not provide face masks where necessary and those employees who did have masks were not face fitted correctly or unsuitable because of facial hair.
• Secondly, no risk assessments or health monitoring was done for the use of vibrating tools such as air hammers and as a result two workers were diagnosed with hand-arm vibration syndrome.

If this was not bad enough the owner of the company had previously received advice about these issues from the Health and Safety Executive.

Speaking after the hearing Health and Safety Executive inspector Fiona McGarry said: “Serious irreversible ill health or even death can result from exposure to silica and hand arm vibration syndrome is a permanent disabling condition. Employers need to take action to ensure they are providing adequate control to protect the health of employees.”

So what was the cost of ignoring the HSE advice?

The owner of the company was fined a total of £2,500 and was ordered to pay £1,921.29 in costs after pleading guilty to offences under Regulation 7 (1) of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 and Regulation 5 (1) and 7 (1) of the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005.

Plan, Check, Do

“This was an entirely avoidable incident. The risks associated with demolition activity are well known and long standing. Demolition, dismantling and structural alteration are high risk activities which require careful planning and execution by contractors who are competent in the full range of demolition techniques. In this case, demolition using hand tools meant workers were unnecessarily exposed to the risk of structural collapse. It would have been safer to use a long reach excavator, which was subsequently brought in to complete the demolition following the incident. Ultimately, the system of work planned was unsafe, resulting in severe injuries which still affect the worker today.”

This is an interesting quote from an HSE Inspector commenting on an, unfortunately, all too familiar story. We don’t need to know the full details to know that something went seriously wrong, but what makes it interesting is the inspector’s clear indication that the planning process for the work was flawed. The point made was not that there was no planning, but that the system of work in operation was wrong and resulted in the incident. This begs the question, why carry out the correct procedure and planning, without making sure it is an appropriate and safe system of work.

If you’re not sure get it checked. C&D can help with this, our extensive knowledge of demolition engineering from years of experience has helped many companies with just such issues. If you need help get in touch and we will see what we can do together.

C&D customer Windmill Demolition in emergency demolition of fire damaged building

A fire has completely gutted a block of 50 flats in Wigan. The problem is, it's unclear how the fire started (although a barbecue is suspected) and the structure isn't deemed safe enough to go in and investigate. Demolition is coming to the rescue though.

C&D customer Windmill Demolition is on site and aiding the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and investigators to get to the bottom of the blaze. It has been agreed that the top two floors will be demolished to allow the investigation to continue. A hydraulic platform is also being raised and used to take thermal image scans ensuring no more fires are brewing.

While this is going on 50 residents have to be housed. They spent the first night in a local Premiere Inn, but the local council is busy creating a "housing cell" at Mill at the Pier for longer term temporary housing. With the flats gutted, and now in a state of demolition, they could be there a while.

Source: Wigan Today

It’s All About Teamwork

The conclusion of a recent court case should serve to remind us that more often than not an incident arises from a combination of issues and likewise responsibility is not always with one person or company, but with numerous people or companies.

The case in question involved the tragic death of a worker at the Yorkshire Mining Museum, who was employed, in January 2011, to work on expansion of the museum's visitor experiences by extending underground access tunnels. Unfortunately, whilst operating a forward tipping dumper underground he suffered fatal entrapments and crush injuries.

The case was bought against three defendants, the museum, the contractor and the machine supplier. All were found to be in breach of their responsibilities, but the museums failings were deemed to be management failings and did not have a causative role in the incident.

The main contractor was found to have no risk assessments or safe working practices in place as well as not giving appropriate training to its staff. The machine suppliers were found guilty of supplying an unsafe machine as it did not comply with design standards or safety requirements.

The three companies were fined a total of nearly £600,000, plus of course their own costs. It cost the family of the worker a husband and father.

Very rarely do we work individually on a project, more likely we are part of a team, and it is imperative that we all work and communicate with all other parties to avoid this sort of tragedy occurring on one of our jobs.

Suggested courses which will help with promoting this teamwork are “Managing Demolition for Principal Contractors” and the “Site Management Safety Training Scheme” both available from C&D Training.

Tragic Tale From Ireland

The Irish Independent newspaper of Tuesday 25th November has a tragic story of two close friends and neighbours who, unfortunately, died together doing something they had done “hundreds of times before.” The pair were inflating a tyre on a tractor one of them owned, in a field, when the accident occurred.

A close friend is quoted as saying, “they would have blown up tyres hundreds of times in the past without a problem. This time something went wrong, horribly wrong”

Link to the story:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/entire-community-in-deep-shock-over-freak-accident-that-killed-best-friends-30765860.html

A sobering story that reminds us all of the very distinct possibility that something we do as a matter of course and that we have done many times before, may well one day cause us, or others, injury. Our thoughts go out to the two men’s families and many friends.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg433.pdf - Health and Safety Executive

“Safety during tyre inflation in motor vehicle repair” leaflet details safety precautions for dealing with the changing and inflation of the tyres.

Tyre inflation is something that happens on demolition sites and in demolition company garages on a regular basis but ask yourself the following questions;-

• Do you have a risk assessment and method statement to cover this work?
• If you use a tyre repair company with mobile fitters do they have “suitable & sufficient” risk assessments and method statements to cover their work?
• Does the hose repair fitter who deals with machine hose failures have a “suitable & sufficient” risk assessment and method statement, or do you say "It is only the hose guy and he has done this job thousands of times?"
• If the tyres need to be removed and replaced is there a manual handling assessment in place?

When you have done all this and you are satisfied that nothing will go wrong just take a few minutes to consider “What if?”