Dallas McMillan's Blog

An engineering and construction company has been fined £250,000 for safety failings after a surveyor was killed by a reversing lorry during work to widen the M25 near Dartford.

Richard Caddock was talking on a mobile phone and could not hear the approaching truck above the noise of nearby motorway traffic, when he was hit from behind in 2008.

The Health and Safety Executive prosecuted his employer Costain Limited for failing to ensure adequate precautions were in place to separate the movements of people and vehicles.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that Mr Caddock had left a parked van and was walking northbound along a section of the central reservation closed off as part of a £65 million scheme to ease congestion between junctions 1b to 3.

As he talked on the phone, a tipper lorry delivering crushed stone entered the same section and reversed northbound. Mr Craddock had walked approximately 30m when the truck hit him.

The surveyor sustained multiple injuries as a result of being run over by the eight wheel vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene.

After the hearing HSE Inspector Melvyn Stancliffe said:

"This was a terrible tragedy that could easily have been avoided had Costain Limited implemented basic safety precautions.

"The movement of people and vehicles on construction sites requires careful planning and effective control. It must be considered a critical part of transport management. This case highlights that a failure to be in control can have devastating consequences."

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued updated advice to surgeons that patients with a particular type of metal-on-metal hip replacement should be monitored annually for the life of the hip replacement.

This updates previous advice from April 2010 that patients with this type of hip replacement need only be monitored for a minimum of five years after their operation.

The updated advice is included in a new MHRA Medical Device Alert that has been issued to clinicians for the management of patients with these hip implants to minimise the risk of having to undergo further surgery to correct complications.

Dr Susanne Ludgate, Clinical Director of the MHRA, said:

“Clinical evidence shows that patients have a small risk of suffering complications from having metal-on-metal hip implants. These implants have in most cases completely transformed the lives of patients who in the past were subject to increasingly severe pain and progressive lack of mobility."

She went on to say that: “By monitoring patients every year, any complications will get picked up earlier and more complex surgery on the patient can be avoided.”

A company and its manager have been fined after two workers were engulfed in a fireball when they cut through a live 1,000 volt electrical cable at an industrial unit in Telford.

The two men had been told to find an underground water leak at an empty industrial unit owned by the company in Telford. They were instructed to dig at a spot outside the unit. Using an electrical drill, they drilled nearly 40cm into the ground until they hit a live 1,000 volt cable.

They were engulfed in a fireball and suffered burns to their hands, arms and faces. Both were airlifted to hospital and one of the men was so seriously injured that for the first few days, doctors believed he might not survive.

HSE's investigation into the incident found that the company had not assessed the risks involved, devised a safe system of work or obtained site plans of the area, checked whether there were any electrical cables underground or used safe digging methods. The two men had also received no training about the dangers arising from underground services.

The court also heard that in issuing instructions to the two men, the company manager had a duty to take reasonable care for their safety. Despite being aware of the guidance which details how to dig safely near underground services, he failed to ensure that proper precautions had been taken before telling them to start work.

The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £4,420 costs. The manager pleaded guilty to breaching Section 7(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £1,000 costs.