03.06.2004

£25,000 fine for using Excavator as a Crane

J Reddington a contractor based in Enfield was fined £25,000 plus £7,620 in costs today after pleading guilty to breaching safety rules for lifting materials causing serious injury to an employee, Warsame Yusaf.

The offence occurred in August 2002 when an excavator was being used to lift a quantity of steel piles when the slings being used broke causing the steel to fall on Yusaf. It seems that the weight of load being lifted was well within the capacity of the lifting equipment and the excavator, but the way the sling was attached to the excavator bucket caused it to break and thus caused the accident.

HSE inspector Alec Ferguson, who investigated the incident, said:

“Mr Yusaf suffered terrible injuries as a result of this incident. The law requires the lifting and lowering of loads to be carried out in a safe manner. While the load was within the lifting capability of the slings, shackle and excavator, the method used of steadying the load – pushing the excavator bucket forward against the slings – caused damage to one of the slings and led to its failure. There was neither protective packing nor protective sleeving at the point where the bucket met the sling to prevent wear to it. There are lessons to be learned from this incident for all who use lifting equipment.”

Reddington Ltd, had earlier pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 8(1)(c) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) 1998

1.Regulation 8 of LOLER states: ‘(1) Every employer shall ensure that every lifting operation involving lifting equipment is-

(a)properly planned by a competent person;
(b)appropriately supervised; and
(c)carried out in a safe manner.
(2) In this regulation ‘lifting operation’ means an operation concerned with the lowering or lifting of a load.

2. The maximum penalty in a Crown Court for the breach of a LOLER regulation is an unlimited fine.


Vertikal Comment

Amazingly the focus in this case seems to have revolved around the method used for attaching the slings to the excavator and not that fact that an excavator was being used to lift loads, a task for which it is not ideally suited and most likely for which the operator was not addequately trained.

The lifting of loads in this way is still a common sight on construction sites in the UK and Ireland, this would have been a prime opportunity to have sent a stronger message out regarding the use of equipment designed to safely lift loads, such as Cranes and Telehandlers, rather than making do with excavators rigged up with slings.