Health and Safety Investigation Following “Traumatic Injury”
A construction site in Exeter in under the microscope after a man suffered serious injury while working on scaffolding.
Roads were closed, emergency services called and much of central Exeter ground to a halt last Wednesday, after a construction worker suffered potentially life-threatening injuries. The incident happened at Stover Court, a high-rise property in the centre of the city that is being redeveloped as student accommodation.
The full circumstances surrounding the accident are still under investigation, but the early indications are that the man was injured while a crane was unloading doors onto the site. The incident has brought into sharp focus the importance of construction signs for the safety of both passers by and site workers.
What happened?
The accident took place at the seven-storey development in the Grecian Quarter, part of a £9 million redevelopment project that will provide accommodation for students attending the nearby University of Exeter.
The casualty was working at height on scaffolding at the same time as a crane was lifting a set of doors onto the fifth floor. Initial reports from those on the scene suggest that the crane suffered a mechanical malfunction of some kind, and this is what led to the accident.
Emergency response
The emergency response was complicated by the hazardous location and the fact that the victim was at height. Fire, police and ambulance services all attended, and the local road network was brought to a halt for two hours as they brought specialist equipment to the scene.
Ultimately, paramedics attended to the injured man, who has not been named, by using Exeter Fire Rescue’s aerial platform. Police attending the scene spoke to local reporters and suggested that he had suffered leg injuries, but a South Western Ambulance Service spokesperson later confirmed that he had a “traumatic head injury.” The spokesperson described it as a serious injury that “would normally require urgent medical treatment.”
The Devon Air Ambulance was on standby, but ultimately the man was taken to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital by conventional ambulance.
Investigation
The Health and Safety Executive confirmed to local press that it was aware of the incident and that it is making initial enquiries. While the HSE does not perform a full investigation of every incident that is brought to its attention, it seems likely that it will do so in this case.
The HSE has selection criteria to determine which incidents it investigates, and these take into account both the severity of injury and the probability that health and safety regulations have been breached. In this case, the serious head injuries sustained by the victim and the question marks surrounding the procedure followed while the doors were being lifted to the fifth floor suggest a detailed investigation will be appropriate.
Any HSE probe involves a full fact-finding exercise, determination of the root cause, identification of lessons learned, implementation of corrective actions and, where applicable, suitable enforcement actions.
Meanwhile, as the HSE gathers its information, the victim is continuing to recover in hospital.