MANUAL handling incidents do not lead to headline-grabbing fatalities, but they can have a severe and long-lasting impact on employees' health, and produce eye-catching financial penalties for businesses. Two members of the union UNITE received six-figure sums from their employers for serious manual handling injuries. In one case, an odd-job man was hurt moving a 60kg beer keg from one vehicle to another. In the second, a dishwasher fell on a warehouse supervisor as he unloaded a container. See "Heavy stuff will hurt you", www.lexisurl.com/ hsw_heavyfine for more details. HSE figures (www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/ tables/kind7.htm) show that being injured while handling, lifting or carrying is the most commonly reported injury at work. Such injuries accounted for over a third of three-day and non-fatal major injuries in 2008-09.
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