An Angus industrial firm has been fined after a former employee’s leg was crushed by a half-tonne steel frame.
Robert Ramsay was a 19-year-old agency worker at Forfar Galvanisers when disaster struck on November 20 2013.
Mr Ramsay was helping the movement of an A-frame at the firm’s Carseview Road, when the object slipped from a forklift and fell on him.
Charges were brought following a Health and Safety Executive investigation into the incident and the firm was fined £7,000 at Forfar Sheriff Court.
The court heard the firm expressed “deep and sincerely-held regret” that the accident took place, which caused co-workers Mr Ramsay’s father among them “considerable upset”.
Fiscal depute Gary Aitken said: “The case arises as a result of an accident where Robert Ramsay, an agency worker, was injured when a metal A-frame weighing almost half a tonne slipped from the forks of a forklift truck at the premises of Forfar Galvanisers Limited and fell on him.
“The accident was due to a failure of the company to provide a safe system of work, particularly a means of stabilising such loads on the forklift.”
The court heard the firm employs 18 staff and carries out the treatment and coating of metal products galvanising.
Mr Ramsay was employed by Key Personnel of Dundee as an agency worker, and had worked at the firm for four months before the incident.
Mr Aitken said that it is normal to transport items for galvanising on pallets but oddly-shaped items such as this particular frame require more hands-on work.
He added: “The two permanent employees considered that the frame needed to be the other way round to allow the galvanising process to work properly and allow the chemicals to run off rather than pool in the protruding section.
“Mr Ramsay and his colleague were standing at opposite edges of the frame to steady in. It was not stabilised in any way.
“It began to slip and the driver shouted repeated warnings, which his colleague heeded but Mr Ramsay did not.”
The worker sustained bruised bones, trapped nerves in his leg, muscle and tissue damage, severe swelling and a lot of external bruising.
He returned to work in March 2014 in the same field with a different firm.
On behalf of the firm, solicitor Victoria Anderson said managing director Tony Walker and operations director Eoin Clarke were in court to hear the outcome.
She said the firm had a “good health and safety record” and immediately undertook an internal investigation to determine the cause of the accident and this was made available to HSE.
An external auditor, AquaTerra, was subsequently appointed to oversee site safety.
The firm faced a maximum fine of £20,000 and was given a £7,000 penalty, reduced from £10,000 due to an early plea.
Sheriff Gregor Murray said: “As this is a summary complaint, I can only impose a fine, which must bring home to the directors and shareholders of the firm the severity and seriousness of the breach.”