A North Yorkshire-based construction company has admitted safety failings that led to one of its employees suffering a fractured skull and eight broken ribs in a four-metre fall.

The 50 year-old construction worker, from Masham, was using a saw to cut through steel sheets of a mezzanine floor when he started to unbalance. He threw the saw through a hole in the metal framework and then fell himself, hitting the concrete floor below.

The incident, on 7 August 2012 at a unit on the Pool Business Park on the outskirts of Leeds, was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which prosecuted Ripley-based HACS Construction Ltd at Leeds Magistrates' Court.

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The court heard the firm had been contracted to lower the mezzanine floor it had previously installed. The injured worker and a colleague had already broken up and disposed of all the concrete and were working on removing the steel sheeting, working in sections and dropping the cut metal to the floor below.

At one point as a steel sheet fell, the employee felt his boot getting closer to an open edge, looked through the hole he had created and felt a panic. He threw the saw through the hole and then fell himself. Although he sustained multiple injuries, he has since been able to return to work.

Magistrates heard HSE found the HACS Construction Ltd had not put any precautions in place to prevent falls from the mezzanine level during the work. The safety harnesses they had provided to the two workers were unsuitable and neither had been given training in how to use them.

HSE said the company had considered the use of a ‘crash deck’ – a safe working platform – at the outset of the work. However, a decision was made not to proceed as it would save time.

HACS Construction Ltd of Nidderdale House, Station Yard, Ripley, Harrogate, was fined a total of £16,000 and ordered to pay £7,847 towards costs after admitting two breaches of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

(CD/IT)