Telehandler Savety

Telehandler Safety

By Helen Scourfield

Serious injuries can result in lifelong disability and temporary or sometimes permanent loss of income. Where the injuries are fatal, family and friends also have to deal with the severe emotional trauma of suddenly losing a loved one. When a chainsaw cuts into limbs, it is not a nice clean cut easy to sew up by the surgeons.

A few years ago, close to where I live, a farmer was working in a bucket of a telehandler machine, which was extended upwards so that he could use the chainsaw to cut branches off trees. His son was driving the machine. The farmer shouted to his son to move backwards to work on other branches, but unfortunately the telehandler wheels went into a pothole, which caused instability to the machine, and the farmer and the chainsaw fell out of the bucket.

Why do we take risks, and yes we do this probably every day of our lives, but when working in and around machinery and chainsaws, carrying out a risk assessment plan will save lives. In the instance above, the telehandler should have had as its attachment a people cage, and not a "digging bucket". The area around the telehandler should have worked out the best place to place the machine to ensure stability.

A self-employed forestry worker was struck in the face by a chainsaw. He was snedding windblown trees and stumbled as he moved position. An employee arborist suffered a chainsaw laceration to the back of his left leg during tree pruning work. His employer had provided him with chainsaw protective trousers, which only had protective material on the front of the legs.

A local authority arborist fell from a ladder when removing the lower limbs of a tree during dismantling. The ladder was supported on the branch he was cutting. The ladder was not secured to the branch, nor was the chainsaw operator roped into the tree. It was because he was embarrassed, as he himself, working as a chainsaw operator, had been out working alone with a chainsaw, and slipped.

It is time for everyone who works or has an interest in forestry and arboriculture to ensure that adequate resources (i.e. time, money and effort) are devoted to health and safety. Make this a lifelong priority - not a lifelong regret.

A Staffordshire construction company has been fined £30,000 after a worker was injured when he fell into an unsafe excavation.

The worker, of North Wales, suffered internal injuries and a broken pelvis when he fell into an excavation on a site in Wrexham, where the company was installing a septic tank system.

The HSE urged companies to better manage their health and safety risks - a spokesperson commented "Construction has a significant number of risks to health and safety, which need to be managed properly. There was a systematic failure by Winnington Construction to manage the risk on this site, which resulted in the worker falling into the excavation and receiving quite serious injuries"

• Failure to recognize a problem: A risk assessment should have raised this
• Failure to ensure that safe systems of work are followed: How often do over zealous workers take a short cut despite being provided with the necessary tools and training
• Failure to provide safe systems of work: Often employees will risk injury because the job "will only take a few minutes"
• Inadequate information, instruction, training or supervision provided: Don't take for granted that everyone has the requisite knowledge to complete a job. It is the employer's responsibility to ensure that the employee has been trained, not the other way round
• Failure to use appropriate equipment: We have all seen pictures of personnel standing on the forks of a telehandler or standing on the top rung of a ladder
• Failure to provide safe plant/equipment: The PUWER (Provision and Use Work EquipmentLifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998) are designed to ensure that all equipment complies with Health & Safety Legislation and that it is services and regularly maintained.