The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has warned construction companies of the dangers of using improvised procedures when dismantling heavy machinery. The warning follows the successful prosecution of Bedfordshire based piling firm Dawson-Wam Limited, after the death of a worker who was dismantling a piling rig, on 13 September 2002. The company was subcontracted by Jarvis Construction UK to pile around the perimeter of a site in Hosier lane in the City of London to create a retaining wall for the construction of a new office block.
Part of the dismantling process for the machines involved lowering the auger drive unit onto a stand. The unit was then supposed to be separated from the leader mast by the hydraulic release of two grab pins. However the hydraulic mechanism failed on both machines. Employees therefore used an improvised method to disconnect the drive unit from its backplate on the first machine. But the stand design on the second was different and did not allow the backplate to swing away. The worker tried to free the motor by fastening chains to the auger drive unit and connecting them to the arm of the excavator. The excavator pulled the chains causing the drive unit to fly off the stand and strike the man, causing fatal injuries.
Dawson-Wam pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and were ordered to pay a total of £176,128 at Croydon Crown Court, on 26 September 2007. They accepted that they had failed to suitably assess the risks from dismantling the piling rig in a different method from the operators manual, and had not provided adequate instruction to their employees for dismantling the drive unit in such circumstances.
This is the second large fine this year for Dawson-Wam, who as we reported in the June 2007 Monthly Bulletin, were fined £110,000 over an incident on 10 May 2004, which led to the death of an employee in similar circumstances.
