A man from Burnham-on-Crouch may make a claim for accident compensation following an accident at work in which he almost lost his arm.
The man, who was working as a furniture assembler at Machine Hire Ltd at Essex-based Burnham Business Park, was new to the job when the incident occurred.
He had been using the large cross-cut saw to cut up pieces of wooden 'off-cuts,' when the saw slipped and almost sliced his left arm off.
Following the work accident, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) carried out a detailed investigation which revealed that he had only received five minutes training on how to use the saw, and was still a novice when it came to using large pieces of industrial equipment such as the cross-cut saw.
Machine Hire Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching Health and Safety at Work Regulations and were fined £12,500 at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court, along with £3,000 costs.
An HSE inspector said, “This incident was being entirely preventable. Employees have to be trained by competent instructors, who should back up training with the necessary supervision, to ensure that a high level of competency is achieved.”