28 January 2020
BRB Site Excavation and Groundworks Limited was fined £35,000 and ordered to pay £5,000 costs by the Royal Court on 10th January 2020 after pleading guilty to a breach of Regulation 13 of the Health and Safety (Management in Construction) (Jersey) Regulations 2016.
A BRB employee was operating a six ton forward tipping dumper truck on a spoil heap on the construction site on Saturday 6th July 2019 when he lost control of the vehicle. The dumper truck slipped down the side of the spoil heap and overturned, crashing into a timber fence at the bottom of the slope. The worker attempted to jump clear as the vehicle overturned and suffered fractures to his ribs and vertebrae along with cuts and bruises.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Inspectorate identified that the worker involved had only started working for BRB three days previous to the incident. On the day in question, there had been no qualified dumper truck operator present and he had been allowed to operate the vehicle after telling a supervisor he had operated a similar vehicle in Madeira. The supervisor, who was also not qualified to operate a dumper truck, showed him how the controls worked and then left him to operate the vehicle unsupervised.
This was a wholly avoidable accident that resulted in serious injury to the operator. Dumper trucks are dangerous items of plant that should never be operated by inexperienced and untrained personnel. When loaded they have a high centre of gravity and accidents involving dumpers overturning are not uncommon when traversing sloping ground and often have fatal consequences.
Further Information
Further guidance on the Health and Safety (Management in Construction) (Jersey) Regulations 2016 is available on the HSI website.
gov.je