The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning companies to put in place proper safety precautions and procedures to ensure that all machinery is properly guarded. The warning follows the death of a sub-contractor working for Edeco Petroleum Services on a drilling project at Aldbrough Gas Storage facility, East Yorkshire in 2005.

Edeco Petroleum Services Ltd of Trent Lane, Castle Donington, Leicestershire, pleaded guilty and was fined a total of £200,000 and ordered to pay costs of £47,400 at Hull Crown Court. The prosecution results from a fatal incident when Neil Millar, a 36 year-old sub-contractor, from Aberdeen, was asphyxiated when his neck became trapped by a descending arm used to lift materials on a drilling rig.

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On 6 August 2005 Mr Millar was found dead beneath a piece of specialist lifting equipment that was used for lifting metal tubular casing up to the rig floor before being placed down a deep borehole. A lifting arm, powered by a large hydraulic ram, descended and trapped Mr Millar's neck against a fixed horizontal steel beam that supported the lifting equipment above the ground. The worker died as a result of asphyxiation.

HSE Inspector John Rowe said: "This was an horrific incident which resulted from the company's failure to guard the machine and prevent the worker from getting into a position where he was in danger. Employers have a duty to ensure that workplace machinery is safely guarded and that their employees do not have access to exposed and dangerous moving parts."

He continued: "The piece of machinery involved in the incident had been imported from Canada, and it had not been checked to ensure that it was safely guarded. If this had been done, then this tragic loss of life could have been avoided.

"There had been a number of safety incidents of a less serious nature involving Edeco Petroleum Services which indicated, that at times, standards of health and safety management fell well below what was required."

Edeco Petroleum Services were charged with breaching Section3 (1) and Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

(JM)