On 22 September 2009 a maintenance fitter employed by Nottinghamshire-based Van Elle Limited was driving a wheeled excavator during widening work on the M1 motorway.
The boom of his vehicle struck a bridge between junctions 25 and 28.
The worker, who asked not to be named, was not wearing a seatbelt. The impact threw him over the steering column and through the open front screen.
Hitting his head on the front excavator blade, he suffered severe head injuries and was in a coma for two weeks.
His rehabilitation lasted a further five months and, although he has since returned to the company, he has been left with reduced function in both his left arm and leg, for which he continues to receive physiotherapy.
He was, Mansfield Magistrates were told, driving through the site with the excavator boom at an unsafe height of more than six metres.
According to the manufacturer, the boom should be no more than four metres high while travelling.
The subsequent Health and Safety Executive investigation concluded the accident was the fault of the company.
“These injuries were wholly preventable had the company ensured the driver had adequate training in safe travel positions for manoeuvring the excavator on the construction project,” explained HSE inspector Kevin Wilson.
Even though the worker had been assessed to carry out lifting operations at the company's premises, on the day in question was standing in for a regular driver on the motorway construction site, and he had not received adequate training in use of the excavator.
Van Elle, said inspector Wilson, “failed to take into account his lack of training for the particular task.”
Van Elle Limited, of Kirkby Lane, Pinxton, Nottinghamshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 9(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
The firm was fined £12,500 and ordered to pay costs of £29,660.
