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A labourer sustained a serious electrical shock because electrical equipment was not properly maintained.
The 21 year old man was working at Steel fabricators Hickman Engineering Ltd in Cannock. He was helping to manually load a saw before his colleague cut a length of metal handrail. Although the machine wasn’t switched on at the time, he still suffered an electric shock.
The saw’s electric cable had been unsuitably repaired with tape and it featured corroded earth connections.
An HSE official observed: ‘The cable was too long, allowing it to droop onto the workshop floor without any protection, where metal filings were present. The design of the machine was not suitable for the conditions of the workshop, and in many respects this was something just waiting to happen’.
The company was fined £3,000 plus £1,500 costs for breaching the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.
