Royston worker loses fingers on unguarded power hammer 04 December 2012

Johnson Matthey has been fined £20,000 plus costs of £2,194 after an employee sustained serious hand injuries at a plant in Royston, Herts, operated by the company.

The court heard that two of the worker's fingers were severed on 30 March 2011while he was using an unguarded 10-tonne power hammer to crush waste pieces of metal.

HSE established that not only was the automatic hammer unguarded, but it also wasn't being used correctly.

Johnson Matthey pleading guilty to two charges under PUWER (the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998).

"The injured employee was using this powerful machine inappropriately: it wasn't guarded and was unsuitable for the work he was doing," comments HSE inspector Stephen Farthing.

"It had become common practice within the company for the power hammer to be used in this way. Had better precautions been taken to make the machine safe and properly supervise activity, then the incident could have been prevented."

Brian Tinham

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Health & Safety Executive

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