WORKMATES packed the fingers of a colleague in frozen peas in a desperate attempt to save them after they were sliced off in a North Wales factory.
Hazlewood Foods, of Abenbury Way, on Wrexham industrial estate, yesterday admitted failing to ensure the safety of an employee. It was fined £10,000 with £10,000 costs after the worker had two fingers cut off while using a food-processing machine.
Town magistrates were told that Christopher Lowe, 51, lost the tops of the two fingers from his right hand in spite of attempts by other workers to preserve them in frozen peas in case surgeons could sew them on again. He was seriously injured when he reached up and put his right hand into a mixing bowl from which the protective guard had been removed.
Tudor Williams, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, said a workmate saw a glove with two fingers missing and realised what had happened. He looked inside the machine and saw the two glove fingers there, complete with Mr Lowe's severed fingers inside.
He put them in a bag of frozen peas to see if they could be preserved and stitched back on, but they were too badly damaged. Mr Lowe was taken to hospital and after surgery, spent two days as an inpatient followed by several weeks of treatment.
He returned to work four months later, doing a different job. The injury had caused obvious permanent damage and he was still having trouble with the grip in his right hand.
A sliding guard with an electro-magnetic switch should have covered the machine so that it was impossible to operate while the guard was removed. Reports from other work-ers revealed that over a period before the accident the machine had often been used with the guards disabled.
Taking the magnet off part of the guard and putting in the operating position completed the electrical contact necessary to start the motor.
A foot pedal with a button that had to be pressed to make the machine work had been placed on the table and wedged against the machine to keep it permanently in the "on" position, making it ineffective.
The company should have made checks and known about it and they had not carried out a full risk assessment.
Christopher Green, defending, said the foot pedal was installed as a second safety measure following a visit by a health and safety officer. The company had a good safety record.
Paul Holloway, presiding, said the magistrates had considered the aggravating features that the shield was not in place at the time of the accident and the machine had been used like that for the last four weeks.
