Stacking 'blind spot' ended in fatal crush

摘要

A heating, ventilation and air conditioning manufacturer has been ordered to pay ￡183,000 in fines and costs after an unsupported one-tonne stack of bundled steel tubes crushed a production supervisor. The incident occurred on 27 July 2011 at Roberts-Gordon Europe's warehouse in Wednesbury in the West Midlands, while Ronald Meese was using a forklift truck to stack three-metre-long metal heater tubes. Mr Meese had already created several stacks from a delivery of the heater tubes, which were bound by bands into bundles of 19 and weighed about 200kg per bundle. Each stack was five bundles high and separated by pieces of wood. When he left his forklift cab to set down timber pieces for the next bundle of tubes to rest on, one of the 2.6-metre-high stacks collapsed on him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.