Laminate Flooring Firm sentenced over worker's injuries

A laminate flooring firm has been sentenced after a worker at its Merseyside factory suffered severe injuries to his left hand.
The injured person now has difficulty dressing himself and using a knife and fork after his hand came into contact with a large circular saw, in August 2009.

The company was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following an investigation into the cause of the incident, which resulted in the loss of sections of three fingers and breaking his thumb.  The 22 year old from Everton needed a six hour operation to reattach his fingers and is unlikely to ever regain full movement in his left hand.

The employer, who employs 25 people, was fined £5,000 after admitting two health and safety offences.  The court heard that workers at the factory had been instructed to reach under the guard on the machine to remove the laminate material while the 0.65 metre wide blade was still rotating.

The machine was installed in 2000 but a 27 centimetre gap beneath the guard allowed workers to reach under it.  The HSE investigation found that workers were expected to remove the cut laminate from the blade to stop it being damaged and that there had been several near-misses in the past.

The injured person, who joined the company at the age of 16, has not had a job since the incident and will be unable to return to joinery work in the future.

The investigating HSE Inspector said, “The machine was simply the wrong one for the job. The only way of ensuring the laminate material wasn’t damaged when the blade retracted was for workers to reach under the guard to remove it. The company should have realised it was putting staff in danger every day they worked on the machine and found another way of carrying out the work.”