£8,000 fine for McPherson driver’s fractured skull 29 September 2014

Aberlour-based haulage firm McPherson has been fined £8,000 for safety failings after a worker was seriously injured when an unsecured barrel fell from a lorry, fracturing his skull.

The worker was unloading the vehicle at Speyside Cooperage when the incident – involving a truck with 210 casks, with 80 on the bottom deck, 80 on the second, and 50 on top of the second deck casks – happened on 14 January 2013.

Elgin Sheriff Court was told that he had driven the vehicle, loaded with the empty bourbon casks, from the operator's Fisherton Garage depot to Speyside Cooperage, where the casks were to be repaired.

He parked along the slope of the unloading bay. A landing sponge was placed at the rear of the truck to catch loads if they fell – but no restraints, other than wooden chocks, were used to prevent barrels falling from the third tier.

A Cooperage employee opened the offside door of the lorry, pulling the door around and secured it to the side of the van.

The worker started to do the same with the nearside door, but one of the casks, weighing more than 40kg, fell from the top level of the van and struck him – fracturing his skull and right eye area as well as a vertebra.

An investigation by HSE (Health and Safety Executive) found that McPherson had failed to ensure a suitable system to secure loads on all third tiers. Inspectors found that the top 50 casks were secured only by wooden chocks placed at the front of the casks – but with no safety bar or similar protective measure.

"This was an entirely avoidable incident," says HSE principal inspector Niall Miller, adding that the worker could easily have been killed.

"McPherson should have put systems in place to make sure cargo carried at high levels in its fleet of lorries is securely held, and during loading and unloading," he adds.

Unsafe loads on vehicles injure more than 1,200 people a year and cost UK businesses millions of pounds in damaged goods.

HSE has recognised this risk and has developed a 'Load Safety' website that provides advice on loading and unloading goods and on safely securing loads.

Use the link below.

Author
Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Health & Safety Executive

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