The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued a warning about live electricity cables after a contractor, SP Power Systems, was fined £32,000 plus £15,000 in costs over an incident that saw two workmen seriously burned.
The contractor had been employed to seal the end of an exposed, sparking metal pipe, which workers had discovered at a housing development site in Liverpool. Although the company sealed the end of the pipe, they failed to make it clear to the site team that the cable was still live. The incident occurred five months later, when a worker tripped and fell onto the cable, which exploded.
HSE inspector, Wayne Crumpton said, "This was an entirely avoidable incident that caused horrific injuries. SP Power Systems should have made it clear to the site management that the cable remained live and their own systems should have alerted them to that fact. The cable was still live and should have been made safe by one of their own follow-up gangs very shortly after their first visit to the site."
For more information, see the:
