New Employee, 20, Fractures Skull In Workplace Fall From Height
24th October 2013
Dodds Roofing Services, a Driffield roofing firm, was prosecuted in a case brought forward by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on October 21st after an unnamed employee injured himself in a fall from height.
The victim, who was just 20 years old at the time suffered a skull fracture in the workplace accident, which occurred on September 29th 2011, just a month after he had began working for the company. He developed partial hearing loss, but has since been able to return to work.
Bridlington Magistrates’ Court heard that the worker was installing 25 solar panels on a farm roof with four other employees when he fell through a rooflight, falling three metres and landing on a concrete floor. Dodds Roofing Services had provided crawling boards and a scaffold, but had not provided internal safety measures such as a scaffold or nets to mitigate the risks of a fall.
The company admitted breaching the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was fined £9,000 with £10,000 costs.
HSE Inspector Alan Sheldon noted the victim of the accident at work could have sustained significantly more severe injuries. He argued that falling from height is a widely-known danger in the construction sector, calling falls through rooflights “all-too-common”.
In 2011 to 2012, more than 3,400 people suffered serious injuries in falls from height, with 40 of these people losing their lives, HSE statistics reveal.
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