Driver suffers broken back in work accident
A lorry driver who suffered a broken back following a work accident may be making a compensation claim against those responsible. The health and safety case, which was heard at Newcastle-under-Lyme, recently came to a close with the owners of the warehouse being fined £6, 238 with £11, 762 costs.
The court heard how the delivery driver, who hailed from Codsall, near Wolverhampton, was injured when a stack of insulating boarding fell on top of him in a warehouse in Stoke-on-Trent as he was making a delivery.
As a result of the accident, he had to be hospitalised, suffering multiple spinal fractures as well as a serious head injury, for which he required long-term treatment.
The HSE inspector stated that the man’s accident was preventable; the warehouse’s owners ought to have had a health and safety procedure in place to prevent the risk posed by stacked materials: “Employers have just as great a duty of care to visiting employees as they do to their own. Every year in the delivery and haulage industry there are a number of workplace fatalities and serious injuries as a result of falling objects.”
Now that the warehouse’s owners have been declared liable for the accident, the man is entitled to make a compensation claim.
Updated on 11/22/2010