An industry manufacturer has been prosecuted after a concrete block fell and crushed an employees leg during unloading work.

Buchan Concrete Solutions Ltd formerly of Walton Road, Drakelow, Burton On Trent (now in administration) pleaded guilty to Regulation 8 of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. The company was fined £300,000 with over £10,092 in costs.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates' Court heard a 42-year-old employee was working near a trailer while large concrete blocks were being unloaded onto the outside yard area of Buchan Concrete Solutions Ltd's Drakelow site on 30 June 2015.

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The victim was removing wooden struts that the concrete blocks had been resting on, while the blocks were unloaded by a forklift. However, one of the blocks slipped from the forklift and fell onto a worker.

He was taken to hospital with serious crush injuries to one of his legs, which was eventually amputated from the shin down.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the unloading operation was not properly planned, the forklift truck's weight capacity of five tonnes was not enough to be able to cope with the weight of the blocks, and the worker should not have been in the vicinity while the concrete blocks were being lifted.

HSE inspector Lindsay Bentley said: "The injured man suffered life-changing injuries. This incident was entirely avoidable, had the lifting operations been properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner."

(LM/MH)