A company has been fined £17,500 after a long serving employee fell down a manhole on a construction site.
Family owned sub contractors D and E Mackay had been carrying out groundwork for a new medical centre in Aberdeen when the industrial accident happened in 2014.
One of the company directors was told during a site visit to the under construction Woodside Health Centre on May 23 that a manhole cover had been replaced with a 10mm cement board, typically used for sound proofing.
But no steps were taken to warn any of the employees on the site of the hazard. And just hours later, D and E labourer Robert Gerrard, 61, was directing a truck onto the site when he tumbled through the non-load bearing cover.
He suffered a fractured hip and cracked vertebrae in his back in the four metre fall – leaving him practically housebound and in chronic pain.
He is currently awaiting an appointment with surgeons to find out if he will have to live with the pain for the rest of his life.
The firm, which Mr Gerrard had worked for the previous 11 years, admitted failing to prevent the accident when the health and safety case called at Aberdeen Sheriff Court today.
The court heard that D and E’s operations director Brian Mackay had visited the construction site near the city’s Great Northern Road just hours before the horrific accident.
During his visit he was asked to source a replacement for the temporary manhole cover, which was partially obscured by top soil, by the site’s main developer Galliford Try Construction.
The court heard the original manhole cover had been used to replace another broken one on the site some time earlier by an unknown party.
Mr Mackay noted this was to be done but no steps were taken to mitigate the danger.
On leaving the site, he ordered a final delivery of topsoil to be sent round that afternoon.
When it arrived it was Mr Gerrard’s job to direct it to the correct place on the site – which just happened to be near the manhole.
After directing the driver to the tipping area, he continued walking back from the lorry before plunging through the cement board and into the narrow manhole chamber.
Fiscal depute Richard Brown said that in addition to the hip and back injuries, Mr Gerrard had spent two weeks in hospital and a further five weeks in a back brace.
The fiscal added: “He attends physiotherapy every two weeks.
“Performing routine tasks such as walking, climbing stairs and driving causes him difficulty and as such he rarely leaves the house.
“He takes Tramadol four times a day for the constant pain he suffers as a result of this incident.
“He has an appointment upcoming with an orthopaedic surgeon to assess whether or not further surgery will be of assistance or whether the rest of his life will be lived in pain.”
D and E’s defence solicitor Mark Donaldson said the company, and in particular Mr Mackay, “deeply regretted” the failings that led to the accident and Mr Gerrard’s injuries.
But he said the firm had a solid safety record not with standing this “isolated” incident.
The court also heard that a civil case had been settled between the firm and Mr Gerrard.
Sheriff Graeme Napier fined the Kintore based contractors 17,500 pounds, which has to be paid within four months.
The sheriff added: “It seems to me that the failure to cover this man hole cover was a serious one.
“It exposed danger to anyone that was working on the site, especially as it was covered by soil and was partially obscured.
“The company was aware of the danger of an accident and did not make their employees aware.”