Lawford Kidd's Blog

A Dundee worker lost two fingers when his hand was trapped in a veneer press in a workplace accident.

James Doig had the two middle fingers of his right hand amputated after they were injured during an incident at Lam-Art Ltd. The Sheriff Court heard that although Mr Doig had experience and training in regards to using the machine, he had not been taught how to turn the machine on safely resulting in a fine for his company, Lam-Art, of £5,000.

The employee had been working at the company for 20 years and was only in charge of using the machinery when the normal operators were not in work. Although he was trained, another untrained worker had switched the machine on incorrectly, when Mr Doig then went to check the machine, the other worker who was on shift with Mr Doig touched the control panel, trapping Mr Doig’s fingers between metal plates in the machine.

The Irish Injuries Board has recently released an analysis of 2013 workplace claims, which reveals that it awarded compensation of €24 million in respect of 826 claims for workplace accidents in 2013, compared to €22 million compensation for 807 awards in 2012.

The average award for a workplace accident last year also increased from €27,286 in 2012 to €28,886 in 2013.

The highest award for a workplace accident last year was €432,000, a substantial increase on the previous year’s figure of €332,143.

InjuriesBoard.ie has published a review of workplace accidents in Ireland in 2011 that shows compensation totalling €22.5million (2010: €25.1million) was awarded in respect of 830 (2010: 889 awards) personal injury workplace claims.

Accidents in the workplace accounted for 8.4% of all personal injury awards in 2011, compared to 11% of all awards in 2010. The decrease in the number of claims for workplace accidents last year reflects the reduced numbers in employment during the period.

Key findings of the review include:

• Men are twice as likely as women to receive an award for a workplace accident - accounting for 70% of all awards (2010: 75%) versus 30% of awards to women (2010: 25%). However, the number of women receiving awards has increased by 5% due to their increased presence in the workforce during the recession.
• Men received an average compensation award of €27,246 (2010: €28,924) compared to €26,771 (2010: €25,876) for women.
• Thursday is deemed the most dangerous workday while Sunday is considered the safest, due to the smaller proportion of people in the workplace at weekends.
• November is the most dangerous month for workplace accidents, while April is the safest.

Workers could be at risk of recurring injury in a proposed trade-off against business costs, a not-for-profit campaign group has warned.

Vibration White Finger injuries have been minimised in Scotland amongst workers using Vibrating Power Tools on M74 Glasgow Link. For advice on all aspects of vibration white finger & HAVs in Scotland contact us 0800 027 1480.