The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning individuals and companies of the dangers of working in construction after a joiner suffered leg injuries and damaged hearing.

The joiner, who was subcontracted to Galliford Try Construction Ltd, was injured when an over-inflated pipe stopper exploded in the confined space where he was working.

He had been working on the construction of a water treatment works at Victoria Road, Holyhead on 16 June, when the incident occurred.

The injured man was constructing shuttering for concrete to be poured into a manhole when he was asked by a colleague to insert an inflatable pipe stopper into a culvert to stop the fluid in the culvert in so it could be lined.


The pipe stopper had a maximum inflation pressure of 1.5 bar and was inflated without warning. However, the device inflating the pipe stopper was not compatible with it, and had a higher pressure safety cut-off.

As a result, the pipe stopper burst with significant force, the joiner sustained a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula, and also suffered damage to his hearing from the noise of the pipe stopper exploding.

At Holyhead Magistrates’ Court, the principal contractor, Galliford Try Construction Limited of Cowley Business Park, Cowley, Uxbridge, Middlesex, pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

They were fined £15,000 and ordered to pay costs of £8,788.

The pipe stopper and inflation equipment was provided by Selwood Ltd, of Bournemouth Road, Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh, Hampshire, who also pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 23 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. They were fined £3,000 and ordered to pay costs of £8,798.

(JM)