Company fined £500k after apprentice severs finger

An engineering company has been fined £500,000 after a teenage apprentice cut his finger off with a bandsaw, the safety watchdog has said.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said the apprentice, then aged 18, was just over a month into his placement at Proline Engineering Limited in Worsley, Greater Manchester, in November 2022 when the incident occurred.

He completely severed one finger and "severely damaged" another which - although reattached - still had "very little movement" and nerve damage, the HSE said.

Proline Engineering Limited was fined £500,000 in Manchester Magistrates' Court earlier this month, and ordered to pay another £5,317 in costs.

The company had previously pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 and 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The HSE said its investigation into the incident found the apprentice was permitted to cut lengths of steel to practice welding on with a horizontal bandsaw after "a brief period of verbal training".

The saw was located in a shipping container "some distance away from the main workshop" and the apprentice was working unsupervised at the time of the incident, the regulator found.

It said he was trying to clear debris from under the saw when the moving blade "instantly severed" one of his fingers and "severely damaged" another, leaving him in hospital for six days.

HSE inspector Tracy Fox said: “This young man was at the very start of his career.

"He sustained serious and irreversible injuries that have been truly life changing.

"Had even the most basic safeguards been put in place, this incident would have been avoided."

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