Bolton fabric firm fined over employee’s injuries

Posted: January 24, 2013

Posted in: Employer Negligence Faulty Work Equipment Workplace Injuries 

A Bolton fabric firm has been fined after an employee was badly injured when he was flipped around a large rotating roller.

The HSE investigation found that the 39-year-old was trying to straighten a crease on a roll of fabric as it was being wound up when his clothes became caught in the mechanism.

He was dragged around the roller three times, suffering cracked ribs and bruising to the side of his body.

Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard that there were no guards on the machine to prevent workers from accessing dangerous moving parts, and the emergency stop button nearest to where the employee was working was defective.

The company had carried out an assessment which identified the risk of workers’ clothes becoming entangled as a hazard, but it failed to act on this. It has since installed a new guard on the machine and changed its procedure for removing creases.

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