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Alert issued following stacked boards collapse fatal incidents
A workman has died in a recent incident whilst he was helping to remove a board from a stack leaning against a wall. The boards fell causing serious head injuries. The death followed an earlier almost identical incident at another site a worker had his legs crushed.
Over the last seven years there have been at least three fatalities caused by falling boards, including that of four year old child who was killed by a falling stack of kitchen worktops. There are always a number of major injuries reported every year
HSE has now issued Safety Alert OPSTD 8-2010 - Fatality caused by stacked boards collapse.
The term ‘boards’ includes sheets and other similar materials such as doors, panels, worktops etc used throughout the manufacturing and construction industries. They can be either wood based such as chipboard, plywood or medium density fibre board (MDF), or made from other materials such as plasterboard.
Action required:
“Those organisations who use boards on their premises should take immediate steps to review their current arrangements of how board are stored and moved. Steps should be taken to provide suitable storage racking such as that illustrated, and appropriate handling aids as part of a safe system of work for retrieval and moving the boards”