Heinz fined £50,000 after worker has hand sliced off in Norfolk factory

Heinz fined £50,000 after worker has hand sliced off in Norfolk factory
Food firm pleads guilty to safety failings after Alec Brackenbury suffers accident while servicing industrial potato peeler



Heinz has been fined £50,000 after a man had his hand sliced off by a potato peeling machine in one of its factories.

Alec Brackenbury, 49, from Bacton in Norfolk, was servicing the machine at the food company's plant in Worstead last June when he suffered the injury which has left him unable to drive or work.

He was in hospital for two weeks and had eight separate operations on the stump. He is unable to drive, work or carry out many day-to-day activities.

On the first day of a maintenance shutdown he tried to reach a bolt which he had dropped. He turned off the peeler to put his hand into the pump below, but it went off and sliced through his wrist.

Heinz was fined £50,000 at Norwich crown court and ordered to pay £9,661 costs on Friday after pleading guilty to serious safety failings.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that although the pump appeared to be part of the peeler, it had its own power supply. This meant that Brackenbury believed he had disabled the pump along with the peeler.

An HSE inspector, Tony Brookes, said: "Alf Brackenbury suffered a horrific injury in an incident that was wholly avoidable.

"Mr Brackenbury was put at risk by Heinz Ltd's inadequate assessment of risks and lack of effective measures to stop access to dangerous parts of equipment.

"It is the duty of the employer to ensure their employees and contractors can carry out their work safely. Sadly, in this case Heinz failed to protect Mr Brackenbury while he was contracted to carry out maintenance work at their Westwick plant and, as a result, he has suffered a life-changing injury."

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/17/heinz-hand-sliced-off-norfolk-factory-alec-brackenbury

Don't buy Heinz beans with sausages in!

all for lack of a simple interlock switch...

heinz should be made to support this man and his family for the rest of his natural...
in other words they should be made to pay his averaged wage (to include any overtime and bonuses) for the rest of his life.......

Absolutely agree Victor!

and YEUK to beans and sausages  

Not a nice thought is it!

He's not going to be very handy at making the ham handwiches either

Poor man, £50,000 fine is nothing to Heinz either    

victorisnotamused wrote:all for lack of a simple interlock switch...

heinz should be made to support this man and his family for the rest of his natural...
in other words they should be made to pay his averaged wage (to include any overtime and bonuses) for the rest of his life.......

Spot on Victor!!