Foundry fined $20K over finger injuries

Adelaide foundry and engineering business Bradken Resources was recently convicted and fined $20,000 by an industrial magistrate in breaching section 19(1) of the Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act 1986 for failing to provide a safe system of work over an incident which occurred in September 2006 that severely injured an employee’s fingers.

SafeWork SA investigated after an employee had his fingers crushed by a heavy metal casting that weighed 250–300 kg. As the casting was lowered onto a workbench by a gantry crane, the worker attempted to put a wooden chock beneath a raised end in a bid to stabilise it. As the casting was lowered, the chock rolled, trapping the employee’s fingers between the chock and the casting.

The tip of the employee’s right-hand middle finger was amputated and the ring finger was severely lacerated. Despite some permanent residual disability, the man returned to work at the foundry.

The company admitted there was no safe work method documented for lifting the castings by gantry crane, and SafeWork SA’s investigator found that training in this method was minimal.

The company conceded its risk analysis was insufficient for a work practice that had been in use for 15 years, prompting Industrial Magistrate Michael Ardlie to note: “The fact there had not been a prior incident is good luck rather than sound management.”

The company has since ended this practice and now only uses forklifts to move castings.

“It may well have been an oversight by the company, but it was a costly one,” says SafeWork SA Executive Director Michele Patterson. “The employer conceded that the risk of injury was foreseeable, and that the remedial measures it implemented afterwards were simple and cost effective. Sadly, it takes an incident of serious harm to occur before something is done.”