Lack of exclusion zone allowed falling timber to hit girl's skull

摘要

A self-employed decorator has received a suspended prison sentence after a length of timber fell onto a three-year-old girl, causing severe head injuries from which it is still not known whether she will recover fully. The incident occurred on 6 July 2018 during refurbishment work and a loft conversion in a flat above a restaurant in Brighton, outside of which scaffolding had been erected. Grzegorz Glowacki was replacing the floor timbers but could not move them up the internal stairs, so he instead used a pulley system to hoist the timbers up the outside of the scaffold to the loft. As the girl's mother was pushing her in a buggy along the street on their way to a paddling pool on the beach, a length of timber that was being hoisted fell from a height of approximately 10 metres, crushing the girl's skull. She suffered life-changing injuries and was not expected to survive but has since made "significant progress" and continues to improve. The HSE's investigation found that Glowacki, who was in control of the work, had used an unsuitable knot to tie the timber to the rope, which allowed the timber to slip out. Nor was there an exclusion zone in place that would have prevented persons from being underneath the load. He had no training for the lifting operation and had not carried out a risk assessment. Stephen Green, an HSE inspector, said the "horrendous incident" would have been "easily prevented by simply stopping people from walking beneath the suspended timber whilst it was lifted. This risk should have been identified by Mr. Glowacki."