A Croydon company has been fined after a young worker suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries when he fell through a roof-light after only weeks into his job.
 
The 17 year old employee had only been at STP Solutions Ltd a few weeks when the incident happened and it was his first job since leaving school.  An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed that his employers told him to go onto a warehouse roof and clean out the guttering at the Argent Centre, Pump Lane, in Hayes Middlesex on May 2009.
 
City of London Magistrates heard that this was an unsafe way to carry out the work and that he was left alone and unsupervised to do the job.  It became apparent that he was crossing the roof when he stepped through a roof light and fell seven metres onto the floor of the empty warehouse. He suffered multiple fractures to his pelvis, a number of vertebrae, his collar bone, upper left arm, elbow and left wrist. His spleen was ruptured and had to be removed in emergency surgery.
 
The company, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety etc. Act (1974), Regulation 3(1) (a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.
 
The company was fined £28,500 and ordered to pay costs of £9,359.
 
Falls from height are the single biggest single cause of workplace deaths in Britain, with 15 deaths and nearly 11,500 serious injuries last year.

For more information on working safely at height please contact us on 0845 1300616 or email info@oms.uk.com."