Two men working on a residential tower under construction in London were fortunate to escape death when a defective cradle they were in fell about 90 feet.  

It’ll soon be International Men’s Day (Sunday 19 November) which this year comes with the theme, ‘Zero male suicide’. Statistics show that more men die by suicide than any other gender identity. So, writes Vikki Wealands, Chair of the IOSH Construction group, we have to keep talking about it and, even more importantly, do everything we can to help.

An operations manager at a funfair company has been jailed for six months and disqualified as a director for five years after a three-year-old girl died on a Norfolk beach. The funfair company he was working for has been fined £20,000.

A manufacturer of shopping trolleys has been fined after two men fell approximately three metres when a metal cage they were dismantling collapsed beneath them.  On 12th May 2018, two employees at Wanzl Limited were taking apart a large metal cage as part of an ongoing programme of improvement works at Prologis Park in Coventry.

MD Safety comment:  This unfortuante case highlights the dangeres of using mobile phones in any capacity when driving.  An enforced policy is essential.

A tractor driver who was looking at Snapchat before he crashed into a cyclist and killed her has been jailed.  Helen Wickham, 53, and her son, 19, were struck by the tractor towing a field roller as they were cycling along Holmes Chapel Road in Brereton Heath, Cheshire on 27 April 2020.

  A building firm has been fined £75,000 after health and safety breaches led to the “tragic death” of a Lowestoft man who was crushed while installing fridges.    Barry Challen, 50, died after suffering critical injuries when a fridge unit fell on him while he and colleagues were moving it at a Co-op store on the island of Guernsey in May 2018.

A specialist heavy lifting company has been fined after two men fell from height during the assembly of a crane.  On 19 January 2021, two employees of Osprey Heavy Lift Limited fell as a result of a partial collapse of a platform on a crane at the Port of Blyth, Northumberland.

A Woolwich labourer is ‘lucky to be alive’ after part of a Victorian building fell on him during demolition work in Kilburn, North West London.  MAC Demolition Ltd, the Middlesex firm contracted to carry out the works, has been fined £60,000 after Tommy Brooks was left with life changing injuries. The 57-year-old had been employed on the site as a labourer for three months before the incident.

Pair admit putting public at risk after 270 accidents - including 11 fractured spines - over seven-week period between 2016 and 2017.   Two former directors of a popular trampoline and adventure park face punishment after scores of visitors were 'injured on a daily basis' - including 11 who sustained fractured spines. David Elliott Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling, both 33, pleaded guilty to health and safety offences when they appeared at Chester Crown Court last month.

Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will visit farms across England, Scotland and Wales as part of a push to change the culture in the industry and check for compliance with long standing legal requirements.  People on farms are 21 times more likely to be killed in a workplace accident than other sectors.