Plant Hire Fatality

Posted on April 8, 2021

Specialist plant hire company, Ruislip Plant Ltd, has been fined £99,000 after a worker was killed whilst undertaking maintenance on a piling rig.

On 13 May 2014, Reading crown court heard that, Ben Wylie, was assisting the Ruislip Plant Ltd Director Mr Noel Kearney (since deceased), with the maintenance of a high-pressure grease track adjusting mechanism at a construction site in Maidenhead. During the process, the grease nipple assembly and a stream of high-pressure grease was ejected from the mechanism and struck Ben Wylie in the shoulder and chest which led to his death.

HSE inspector John Glynn said: “That failure to adhere to the correct procedure for pressure testing was directly causative of this incident. No control measures were put in place by Ruislip Plant Limited and that sadly led to the death of Ben Wylie. HSE guidance is very specific on how this work should be undertaken and previously ejected or damaged parts must not be reused as they were in this case. “This incident could have been avoided if Ruislip Plant Ltd had instead undertaken a risk assessment and devised a safe system of work. That safe system of work would necessarily have ensured that new parts were used, and that the safety procedure of a pressure test was performed. However, a new component was not used in this incident and the safety procedure was not adhered to.”

Ruislip Plant Ltd of Lea Crescent, Ruislip, Middlesex pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The company has been fined £99,000 and ordered to pay costs of £116, 973.36.