H&S Legal Briefing: Work Equipment Entrapment Leading to Fatality

The tragic incident involved 33-year-old Mark Mathers, who was strangled by his hoodie when it became entangled in the mechanics of a roller door at Specialist Cars Volkswagen in Aberdeen. He passed away in the hospital three days later.

On 15 September 2018, Mark, an experienced mechanic, was working with a co-worker to service, repair, and replace a door torsion spring when his hooded top became stuck and twisted around the spring, choking him.

His colleague rushed to his aid and managed to take off his top with a knife, but Mark had already fallen unconscious. He was brought to the hospital and spent three days in intensive care before life support was removed. His cause of death was attributed to hypoxic brain injury and mechanical asphyxia following a brain stem haemorrhage.

Aberdeen Sheriff Court determined that Mark’s employer, Patrick Forman Industrial Doors, had neglected its duty to sufficiently assess the safety risks associated with door torsion springs. The company was also found guilty of failing to implement and maintain a safe system of work for employees tasked with repairing and maintaining torsion springs.

Additionally, the court found that the firm did not provide the necessary information, instruction, training, and supervision to ensure employee safety when working with such work equipment. It was noted in court that while employees had been advised against wearing loose clothing and were provided with boiler suits, there was no formal policy to enforce this.

Sheriff Christine McCrossan told the court that it is the “duty of every employer to ensure the health and safety of all its employees,” adding that “it is an offence to fail to discharge that duty.” She went on to describe what happened to Mark as an “awful accident” and said she believed a number of workers had the potential to be “exposed to harm” because of the lack of a workwear policy.

She said she believed Patrick Forman Industrial Doors should have done more than “counsel” its employees not to wear hoodies and should have put guidelines in place to stop it. Imposing a total fine of £165,000 (costs are not awarded in Scotland), she said she considered there to be “high culpability” on the firm’s part.

Debbie Carroll of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) said: “Mark Mathers lost his life in circumstances which could have been avoided had the risks been recognised and a safe system of work put in place. By failing to have suitable measures in place and provide the necessary information to carry out work safely, Patrick Forman Industrial Doors put their employees in danger,” she added. “This prosecution should remind employers that failing to take reasonable health and safety measures can have fatal consequences and they will be held accountable for this failure.”

A work equipment risk assessment must be completed before conducting any activities using work equipment and needs to consider all factors relating to the equipment, the individual user, and the local operating environment.

The use of work equipment refers to all work activities involving the item of work equipment including, starting the equipment, application of the equipment to a particular task, repairs, upgrades, maintenance, and servicing, cleaning the equipment, stopping the equipment, and moving the equipment.

• Competence and Training: All persons that use work equipment, including the design, assembly, inspection, testing, maintenance, repair, and use of work equipment and associated safety features, must be competent and appropriately trained in the risks and the controls needed, dependent on the level of risk and the work equipment being used.
• Preventing Access to Dangerous Machinery: Access to dangerous parts of machinery must be prevented and controls must be in place to stop the movement of any dangerous part of machinery before any part of a person comes into contact with it. When maintaining machinery, the equipment should ideally be de-energised, isolated from all sources of energy, and locked in a safe state to prevent it from being re-energised before the maintenance or repair is complete. Only the individual undertaking the maintenance must have the ability to “unlock” and re-energise the work equipment.
• Managing Maintenance Risks: Where equipment has to be running or working during a maintenance operation and this exposes the employee to risk of harm, measures must be taken to enable the equipment to operate in a way that reduces the risk, including limiting the power, speed, or range of movement available to dangerous parts or providing additional protection during maintenance operations.
• Work Clothing and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): The provision of work clothing as well as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) will always fall within the range of risk control measures that employers must consider. It is important to remember that all PPE must be suitable for the employee, the task, and the environment in which it must be worn, and comfortable for the user so it does not interfere with the work activity. As in this particular case, failure to ensure that employees do not wear inappropriate or incompatible clothing can lead to severe consequences.
• Regular Workplace Inspections: Make sure that you are completing regular workplace inspections – especially where significant items of work equipment are being used – to ensure that all of the work equipment risk control measures that you might have put in place are indeed still in place and minimising hazards to a level that is as low as reasonably practicable.
• Risk Assessment Compatibility in Client Workplaces: If you operate your business within someone else’s workplace, it is imperative that your risk assessments and work equipment safety systems fully consider the hazards and risks that your employees might be exposed to on a client site. Check that your risk assessments are compatible with/overlap with the client’s workplace or operational risk assessments.

This case serves as a stark reminder that failure to take reasonable health and safety measures can have fatal consequences, and employers will be held accountable for such failures. Employers should not wait for an incident to occur before taking action. Proactive measures, including thorough risk assessments, proper training, and strict adherence to safety protocols, are essential in preventing tragedies like this one.

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