Worker fell down a lift shaft leading to prosecution
A man fell down a lift shaft from the second floor of a school where inadequate safety measures were in place - 17th April 2009
A worker suffered serious
injuries at work after he was involved a
workplace
accident where he had a 6.5 metre
fall from height.
The man's accident at work
happened in February 2008, when the assistant site
manager was helping a lift engineer at North
Kesteven School in Lincolnshire. He suffered broken
bones, fractures and damaged ligaments when he fell
from the second floor down the schools lift shaft.
At Lincoln magistrates court, the UK Lift Company of
Blisworth in Northampton were fined £2,000, and
ordered to pay £8,000 costs after pleading guilty to
breaching regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height
Regulations 2005 which states; "that every employer
must ensure that work at height is carried out in a
manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable
safe" and also regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height
Regulations 2005 which states: "that where work is
carried out at height, every employer shall take
suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far
as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a
distance liable to cause personal injury."
The Health and
Safety Executives (HSE) prosecuting inspector
said: "The injuries Mr. Richards suffered were very
serious and this incident could have easily been
avoided. Working at a lift landing with the landing
door open is clearly unsafe, generating a
foreseeable risk of a fall. This is made worse by
the presence of other people, either assisting or
unexpectedly entering the danger zone, particularly
in a school where there are pupils in the vicinity.
"Risks of this nature must be managed by carrying
out a suitable risk assessment and implementing and
enforcing the necessary control measures. Those
measures in this case would have ideally been
locating the working platform on the second floor or
installing barriers and signage.
"Had appropriate control measures been put in place
when the lift was being repaired, the injuries could
have been avoided."
