ONE of Scotland's most prestigious and well-known food manufacturers has been fined after a worker received severe injuries while working on its production line.
Contractor Jodie Cormack lost part of his left leg and half of his right foot when he was pulled into an industrial sorting machine known as an auger at Baxters site in Fochabers.
He became trapped when he slipped and fell into the working of the machine after climbing onto a conveyor belt to clear potatoes.
Orthopaedic surgeons and other emergency services battled to free him for more than an hour and he was flown by air ambulance to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for emergency treatment.
Baxters Food Group was fined after it admitted health and safety failings at Elgin Sheriff Court following a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the events leading to the incident.
The court heard that Mr Cormack had been working within the steam peeling department, the initial preparation line for vegetables used in the company's soups.
During production, various different types of vegetables need to be kept separate and operators used a ladder to climb onto the conveyor belt to push the last few over into the auger.
On the day of the accident, Mr Cormack turned off the conveyor belt and climbed on top to clear some potatoes, but did not stop the auger moving and as he turned to go back his left foot slipped and was pulled into the machine.
Surgeons later removed part of his right foot but were unable to safe his left and he underwent a below the know amputation. He now uses a prosthetic leg.
The court heard Baxters failed to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which workers were exposed when they were engaged in the task of clearing vegetables from the conveyor belt.
It also failed to reasonably provide and maintain plant and a system of work for the task that was safe, and failed to provide such information, instruction, training and supervision as was necessary to ensure the health and safety at work of employees carrying out that the task.
The court also heard that the company was recently prosecuted for a previous accident in which a worker received hand injuries when his fingers were drawn between the rollers of a conveyor.
Baxters Food Group Limited of Highfield House, Fochabers, Moray, admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 at and was fined £60,000.
Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Penny Falconer said: “This tragic incident was entirely avoidable. Augers are known to be the cause of serious accidents when limbs are drawn in.
“Baxters Food Group should have been aware of the risks involved in clearing the conveyor and the precautions that needed to be taken to prevent access to the auger.”
“It is clear that supervisors and management had not considered how this task was being done.”
Peter McLuckie, group legal and compliance director at Baxters, said: “The welfare and safety of our employees is our number one priority. We deeply regret the injury and distress caused to Mr Cormack. He has now returned to work with our full support and an ongoing commitment to assist him in continuing his role within the company.
"We accept the ruling of today’s case and have worked hard to make improvements to our existing processes and training procedures to ensure an incident like this does not happen again.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here