Firm fined after exploding drum left worker blind

A road safety company has been fined £660,000 after a welder suffered “catastrophic” facial injuries and was left blind by an exploding oil drum.

Andrew Foster was using a plasma cutter to remove the lid from what he believed was an empty and clean 45-gallon drum when it exploded in his face. The dad of two was the only welder fabricator for Highway Care at Detling at the time of the accident in 2012.

Shauna Ritchie, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, told the court the dangerous practice should never have been performed. She said Highway Care failed to identify, riskassess and control the activity.

She said: “The prosecution case is that at the time the incident took place, and before- hand, there was no safe system of work in place for using the plasma cutter for cutting drums which had previously contained flammable liquids.

“It was not an activity that should have ever been carried out because one of the risks of using hot-work tools such as plasma cutters is the risk of explosion. The prosecution say it would never be safe to cut drums in this way.

“There was lack of effective training for the cutting activity because it (training) would have made it clear this was an activity that was dangerous and should never have been performed.”

Mr Foster had been employed by the business, which manufactures road safety and road closure equipment, since 2007 and worked at its sites in Detling Hill, Maidstone, and Dolphin Park in Sittingbourne.

His supervisor on the day of the accident had no welding experience and was “ignorant” of hot-work tool risks.

The court heard Mr Foster began to cut off the drum lid and had told two other workers of his task, something he said he had also carried out on previous occasions and while working at the firm’s Sittingbourne base. Mr Foster cut the lid off one drum and then moved on to another drum that had previously been leaking.

Miss Ritchie said: “He believed it was empty and clean, the oil having been siphoned off by a colleague.

“He didn’t notice any residue and he doesn’t actually now remember anything of what happened until he woke up in hospital about a month later and learnt the drum had exploded.

“The lid had hit him in the face and was found on the other side of the bay in the yard.”