Two firms fined £37,000 after worker injured in 25ft plunge

Two firms have been fined a total of £37,000 after a man broke his arm and sustained facial injuries after falling 25 feet while working on a roofing job.

The self-employed roofer who was sheeting the roof of a new factory under construction at Whaley Road, Barugh, Barnsley in September 2007 when the accident occurred.

The scaffolding at the roof edge did not comply with the requirements for collective fall protection and the man was able to slide between the scaffolding and the roof surface.

Pinnacle Scaffolding of Stockton on Tees, Cleveland, was fined £27,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,000, while L J McLaren Engineering Ltd of Wooler, Northumberland, was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £3,000, at Sheffield Crown Court. after both firms pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 8(a) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

HSE Inspector David Bradley said: "On this occasion the roofer is lucky to be alive, although he has sustained significant damage to his arm and has not worked since the incident. The standards required for roof edge protection are clearly defined in the Regulations and straightforward to implement . The construction industry is one of the country's biggest, employing over two million people. It is also one of the most dangerous, with 34 of the 72 worker deaths in 2007/8 resulting from a fall from height.

"On top of this, over 4,000 major injuries such as broken bones or fractured skulls are reported to HSE every year by the construction industry, half of them involving falls from height, which are easily preventable."