Trainee killed in live electrical test

摘要

A pump manufacturer's failures to provide a safe procedure for electrical testing and to supervise a teenage trainee properly has resulted in it being fined ￡300,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of ￡115,000. The HSE prosecuted Grundfos Pumps after a trainee design engineer, Jake Herring, died when he touched a live three-phase electrical system while testing a control panel at the company's site in Windsor on 30 March 2009. The job involved working with the front of the control panel open, connecting a test box to the panel and carrying out live electrical testing. The HSE's investigation indicated that Herring was using a tool to disconnect the panel after finishing the testing. "We think he was using the socket to disconnect the wire input and then used his hand to hold the nut as well, touching two of the phases," Paul Williams, the HSE's investigating inspector, told HSB. This meant that rather than going through Herring to earth, the current went phase to phase on the three-phase system.