A CONSTRUCTION company has been fined £6,000 after a trainee steel erector became trapped between the basket of a cherrypicker and a metal rail.

Reece Gibson, 20 from Consett, County Durham, had been helping to install cladding rails to a building extension at a site, in Walker Riverside, Newcastle, when he became stuck.

He broke his jaw in three places, suffered a severe cut all the way through the right side of his cheek as well as other cuts to the face and a bruised shoulder. He was in hospital for two days following the incident while working for Crossgill Construction, which is based in Castleside, when the incident happened on February 21 last year.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) today (Tuesday, December 2) prosecuted the company, which is baed at Castleside, Consett, at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court for safety failings after investigating the incident.

Inspector Andrea Robbins said: “This incident could easily have been prevented if both cherrypickers had been positioned outside the frame of the extension.

“Instead a young worker was badly injured and could have been killed because Crossgill Construction failed to plan and manage the work to ensure it was carried out safely.

The HSE found that Crossgill Construction had failed to properly plan and manage the risks from erecting the cladding rails.

Ms Robbins said: “When used safely, mobile elevated work platforms, or cherry pickers, can significantly reduce the risk of injuries from falls from height, but in recent years there has been a significant number of incidents in which workers have been crushed against fixtures or other obstacles, including several fatalities.

“Extra care therefore needs to be taken if such equipment is used to manoeuvre through several layers of steelwork as there is a risk of the operator being trapped should the boom or basket strike the frame.”

Crossgill Construction was fined £6,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Regulation 13(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. The company was also ordered to pay £865.30 costs.

Magistrates were told after the accident the firm had stopped all steel work to focus on crane hire.

At the time Crossgill was a subcontractor working to build a new factory making steel tubes used to connect oil and gas platforms to fossil fuel reserves under the sea.