Firm fined over training plunge
29/07/2010
A quarry operator has been fined £30,000 over an incident which left a trainee in hospital for two days.
The employee was undergoing training to operate a wheel loader at North Cave Quarry - Humberside Aggregates and Excavations Ltd's sand and gravel extraction and processing facility - when the vehicle overturned and slid almost 16ft down a sand stockpile.
Beverley Magistrates' Court heard that the worker was driving on an access ramp edge when it collapsed beneath the vehicle on October 30, 2009.
With no edge protection barriers in place, the machine overturned and plunged down the stockpile - leaving the trainee in hospital for two days suffering from concussion.
Humberside Aggregates and Excavations Ltd, of Newport Road, North Cave, East Yorkshire, was also ordered to pay £10,590 in costs after pleading guilty to three separate breaches of Quarries Regulations 1999 in the prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The firm was prosecuted over its failure to protect the worker as well as for failing to assess, identify and minimise potential risk.
Richard Noble, HSE inspector, said: "This accident could have been avoided had sufficient edge protection been put in place at minimal cost, which has been the standard within the quarrying industry for many years."
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