According to International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA), the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have issued a press release relating to a case where an employee was severely injured after batteries weighing at least 300kg fell onto him.
The person was working with two colleagues when he was struck by the batteries. The three workers had been restacking the batteries, which were stored in Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers (FIBCs), after the stack had toppled over.
However, the FIBCs started to rip in front of them leading to the batteries falling on to one of the workers. He suffered a double compound fracture to his lower right leg, a fracture to the left tibia, a fractured right collar bone, some bruising to his ribs and a cut on his forehead.
What went wrong
The HSE’s findings were that the site was overstocked, bags of batteries had been stacked in an unsafe manner and there was no specific documented risk assessments or safe systems of work for the correct stacking and storage of batteries. This was not an isolated incident.
IMCA members sometimes use FIBCs and incidents of this sort have occurred within the membership, which is why this alert is being passed on as a reminder.
