A company has been ordered to pay almost £5,000 following a workplace accident in which a man lost four fingers.

The workplace accident, in May 2008, occurred when machine operator Mr. L and a colleague had been working on a plastic cutting machine. The plastic had become jammed and Mr L, thinking that his colleague had turned off the automatic guillotine switch, tried to clear the blockage. As he did so the guillotine cutter came down on his hand, severing four fingers.

Mr L was in hospital for three weeks with surgeons eventually managing to re-attach two of the fingers, but he will be unable to carry out any manual work in the foreseeable future.

Liverpool Magistrates Court fined the company £2,500 with £2,438 in prosecution costs for breaching the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations which state that an employer must stop employees having access to dangerous machine parts.

HSE inspector Martin Paren said: “The company should have had a guard on the guillotine to prevent workers from reaching the blade. An automatic mechanism should also have been in place so that the power was cut if the guard was opened. Instead Mr L wrongly assumed that a colleague had switched the guillotine off, and he had four fingers cut off as a result.”

Injured at Work

In the course of his work, a claimant suffered a manual handling injury whilst installing some machine steel at the top of a lift shaft. It slipped out of its retaining pocket and he held on to it in an attempt to prevent it from falling, sustaining a personal injury to his neck and shoulder as he did so.

He required extensive medical treatment and time off from work and eventually had to change his occupation altogether, as the long-term injury meant that he was no longer fit to carry out the heavier aspects of his job.

The injured employee appointed a lawyer to act on his behalf in a claim against his employer. The case was pursued the case on the basis that they failed to employ sufficient health and safety measures to provide him with a safe system of work and keep the risk of injury to a minimum.

Liability was admitted and the lawyer then entered into detailed negotiations with the defendant to ensure that the claimant received an appropriate amount of compensation. During this process, the claimant was able to obtain interim payments to help fund his medical expenses until the case could be concluded. He eventually secured a total amount of damages in excess of £35,000 in respect of his injuries, loss of earnings, medical costs and other losses.

If you suffer an injury as the result of a workplace accident, or any other accident caused by the negligence of someone else, you may be entitled to make a personal injury claim. Our lawyers have a wealth of experience in recovering compensation for the victims of accidents and industrial diseases and can provide you with expert injury claim advice on a cost-free, confidential basis.