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Accident on site your views?

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Paraandy8
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Accident on site your views?

Post by Paraandy8 »

An accident occurred on a construction site between two contractors which resulted in a severe broken nose and lacerations to the face.

One of the contractors a groundworker was working in a trench installing 110mm pipework, he then threw the pipe a short distance (no more than 3 meters) which needed cutting to his co-worker, unfortunately the other contractor was walking past and the pipe hit him clean in the face via the end of the pipe causing these injuries.
It actually turns out the person catching the pipe has one eye, so maybe limited in sight?

They are categorising this accident as a freak accident as it was a windy day, how windy I couldn't say.
The site agent did not want this recorded in the accident book :oops:
It also turns out he groundwork's have a history of incidents on site including 3 gas strikes which were covered up by the site agent and various yellow/red cards for site ill discipline , so there is an issue of close supervision and the culture set by the site agent.

I know vicarious liability can be hard to prove in this way, but do you feel the person caused the incident or even behave in a harmful way during the course of their work and be held liable, and that the injury was as a result of the employers negligence/breach of statutory duty?

My main question is do you feel this was an accident, horseplay or negligence and what would be the likely outcome.
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by Messy »

This is not my area of expertise, but surely the injury was received at work, so should be recorded in the 'accident book'.
I was once assaulted at work and needed hospital treatment by a member of public in a totally unprovoked and surprising attack. It was no 'accident'. But the complex accident investigation process went into full swing.

With my current employer, statistics are also collated to detect trends to allow interventions to be made. If this pipe incident is hidden, how is anyone going to learn or prevent similar pain and suffering. I will be interested in others more competent views, but this sounds wrong
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by Andyblue »

My image of a length of 110mm varies from 6metres to a100mm, i could easily visualise the latter getting caught in the wind, being thrown badly and not easily being seen by the IP, in the former, I’d have serious concerns for so many reasons.
It needs reporting, then as part of the investigation hopefully it will trigger a wider investigation to include the previous events.
If the OP account of the site agent was accepted, it sounds like a recipe for a very serious and very expensive incident in the future
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by Paraandy8 »

Sorry yes the pipe length was 1.2m so maybe it could of easily been caught and a valid point raised, would you consider the act of throwing the pipe as just a freak accident at that point then?
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by Blackstone »

This gets me so :evil: :evil: for many reasons.

1) If the pipe is steel i cant see a 1.2m length getting blown in the wind unless the wind was very strong. If the pipe was a lighter material then yes possibly.
2) Why is he throwing the pipe in the first place? If the catcher only has vision from one eye there is a foreseeable (sorry) risk. Why did he not just hand it to the other person? Possibly the trench was too deep but there are other ways.
3) This is by no means a freak accident and should be recorded in the accident book 100%!

I would not class this as horseplay and definitely an accident.
Without knowing the site, sounds like root cause is poor supervision of the contractors and management of the site for allowing the contractors to behave in an unsafe manner.
Sounds like a cultural problem with the site agent and wont get better any time soon.

The act of throwing the pipe is not a freak accident. By throwing the pipe the contractors are creating a risk for themselves, and in this case, the guy getting smacked in the face!
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by MSpurling »

A broken nose should also be RIDDOR'd as a specified injury - fractures, other than to fingers, thumbs and toes - should it not?
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by djunna36 »

Riddor reportable injury, along with extremely poor supervision and management on that site by the sounds of it?
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by Jack Kane »

Don't throw stuff...

Prohibition notice - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =307168270
PN - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =307211479
PN - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =307497048
PN - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =307984832
PN - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =308662793
PN - "You, as the Principal Contractor, have failed to take reasonably practicable steps to prevent workers from throwing materials in circumstances where it is liable to cause injury to any person." - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =309787432
PN - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =310627158
PN - https://resources.hse.gov.uk/notices/no ... =310997524

Throwing makes me :evil: :evil: :evil:
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by stephen1974 »

Have to hold my hand up for doing something similar and faced a disciplinary for it.

In my case I was throwing damaged ice skates on to a pile ready to be thrown out. The pile was about 2 meters away from me on the floor. I tossed the skate, just as someone stepped out from behind some shelving (no way I could see them) and was almost hit.

They claimed I threw it at them deliberately, and even had other members of staff say they saw me do it. I was able to prove from their written statements that from where they claimed to be standing ( I know no one else was around at all) they it was impossible to physically see anything so they made it up and lied and that part of the incident was dropped.

However, it was a potentially dangerous thing for me to do, regardless of how simple a thing it seemed to be and quite rightly I got a warning over it. As should this person. Throwing things is dangerous. That broken nose could have been smashed teeth or a damaged eye. Throwing things is never ok because you are not in control of the object.

Investigate it for a disciplinary and do an immediate memo/tool box talk on the dangers involved and that it should not be done again.
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Re: Accident on site your views?

Post by otto »

Hi Jack,

The PNs you've referred to specifically deal with throwing objects from height , Reg 10(3) WAHR 2005 specifically refers to this which is what the notices have been served under (as well as HASAW). With regards to the incident above the thrown object is on the same level so the notices wouldn't hold in this situation.

Don't throw stuff is a good mantra though, and I'd be concerned about the incident, but I'm more seriously concerned about not reporting the (alleged) gas strikes which are absolutely RIDDOR reportable.

The main issue here is poor culture and the issue is an accident for sure. Certainly a breach of HASAW and certainly grounds for considering it a negligent act if you were to pursue a civil claim, having said that I don't actually think that in terms of quantum of damages it's worth thinking about as you're not likely to get a reasonable, let alone a substantial sum out of it.

All the best

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