A court has fined a company £8,000 after a timber delivery vehicle driver was impaled by a steel entrance barrier.
Engineering firm the Henry Williams Group Ltd was fined at Darlington Magistrates Court for the 2008 incident, which involved a Darlington Timber Supplies Ltd delivery driver.
The driver, then aged 37, was delivering a load of timber to Henry Williams on the Albert Hill Industrial Estate in Darlington using a flat bed truck.
The court heard that a horizontal swing barrier, consisting of a 6m-long, 60mm-diameter steel tube, had been left open to allow the driver access to an unloading point.
He reversed the lorry through the open barrier so that timber on the left side could be unloaded. He then intended to drive back past the gate to turn the lorry around and return to unload goods from the other side.
But the horizontal bar was not easy to see because of foliage and its face-on position. The bar hit the bonnet, broke the windscreen and impaled the driver through the chest.
The tube smashed three ribs and damaged a lung, causing a 3-4in exit wound in his back. After being cut free he was airlifted to hospital with part of the barrier still embedded in his chest.
He was off work for 10 weeks but has since made a full recovery.
A Health & Safety Executive (HSE) investigation revealed that Henry Williams Group failed to assess the risks involved with vehicles driving on and off the site and there were no means to secure the swing barrier in the open position.
“The driver was in an horrific incident and the real tragedy is this incident could have so easily been avoided,” said HSE inspector Jonathan Wills.
“If the barrier had been secured when it was opened, it would not have been left in such a way that the driver was unable to see it.”
