A roofing company has been fined £14,000 with costs of just under £7,000 after an employee suffered serious injury when he fell through a skylight.
The court heard that the 16 year old worker, who was working for his uncle during the summer holidays, accessed an unprotected roof and fell through the skylight. He suffered three cracked vertebrae as a result of the fall.
No Steps Were Taken
The subsequent Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that there was poor supervision and training. The roofing company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 6(2) and 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.
Regulation 6(2) requires that employees ensure that "work is not carried out at height where it is reasonably practicable to carry out the work safely otherwise than at height." While Regulation 6(3) stipulates that "where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury."
This case is yet another example of why you must ensure that all those working at height are properly trained and suitably supervised and that the correct equipment is selected for the task. In this instance the worker was lucky to escape with the injuries he did, the consequences could have been far worse.
Simple measures such as using a walkway system designed for fragile roofs could have prevented this accident by ensuring that anyone accessing the roof was protected.
Our Roof Walk system has been designed specifically for situations such as this. The system consists of an open mesh walkway that is lightweight, easily portable and suitable for fragile roofs.
Click here for further information on Roof Walk or call us on Tel:01767 691812