Aberdeen-based company, Leiths Scotland Limited, has been ordered to pay £96,000 after an employee was fatally injured while working beneath a mechanical digger. The specialist quarry operations company pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
Elgin Sheriff Court heard a mobile plant fitter was fixing a transmission leak on a five-and-a-half tonne digger. The vehicle was on a raised ramp and its rear wheels were inadequately secured. The worker was crushed when the vehicle rolled off the ramp, and was suffocated as a result of a wheel compressing his chest.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive concluded that Leiths Scotland Limited failed to provide adequate information, instruction, training and supervision to prevent risk to health.
The worker had not previously carried out the task and was expected to establish his own method of raising and supporting the vehicle above the ground. He was left to organise suitable blocks to support the digger without direct supervision or suitable instructions.
HSE Inspector Norman Buchanan said, "This tragic incident should have been avoided. Although undoubtedly an experienced mobile plant fitter, he had not previously carried out this particular task for this firm. He should have received adequate information, training and supervision from his employers, which Leiths did not provide. It is wholly unacceptable his employers left him unsupervised to devise his own means of working on such a risky repair job.”
