The Truth Bar

In a recent case of injury to an employee at workplace, John Rowland Fallows, the owner of Fallows Recycling Services, was fined £1,600 and asked to pay a further £2,214 towards costs by the Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates Court after he pleaded guilty to the breach of Regulation 14 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.

Andrew Perry, who was working at a waste site in Staffordshire, was making use of a control lever for tipping waste products with the extended arm of his truck, when the arm collided with a set of 33,000 volt overhead electric cables, which in turn surged electricity through his body after passing through the truck’s metal structure. Perry suffered severe burns on his hand and feet.

However, according to HSE inspector Lynne Boulton, the employee was lucky because he did not die, as there are less chances of a worker surviving an accident involving overhead cables. She informed that electricity does not require power lines to reach machinery and other devices, as it can jump across spaces or make an arc.

Boulton also added that in this particular case, there were no warning signs or other indicators to suggest the drivers to take some other route and hence, the accident was inevitable. Keeping in mind the fact that the employer installed the barriers right after the incident, it cannot be said that putting up barriers was a difficult task to carry out to ensure health & safety was adhered to.

The incident has in fact instigated the HSE to warn employers against the risks of using machinery near power cables. Health and safety training is essential; for managers and supervisors, a NEBOSH Distance Learning course from Workplace Law offers a unique web-based training platform that leads to the award of the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health.