Last week the Health and Safety Executive successfully prosecuted a property management company and its managing director after the tragic death of one of its apprentices whilst she was at work.

The 18-year-old apprentice was working alone when a stack of unsecured boards fell on her, killing her instantly.

Three main failings were identified:

1. The boards were stacked upright and unsecured, making them unstable and liable to fall;
2. The apprentice was unsupervised – if she had been, it is likely that she would have been told not to attempt to move the boards given their lack of stability;
3. She was working alone – so had no one to help her plan the task that she was attempting.

Time and again, I see employees injured at work when they are simply trying to do their job. Time and again, those injuries occur because what they are attempting to do is due to some sort of failure of equipment or systems.

None of us wakes up in the morning thinking “I’m going to have an accident today”, although, if like me, you have to deal with employer’s liability insurers, you’d swear that is exactly what workers do, just to make their bosses' lives difficult.

I recall one defendant witness statement, and the irritation that shone through, not about the fact that my client had chopped a finger off, but that the bucket of shelled, boiled eggs, into which the finger had fallen, was nearly full when the accident occurred, thus requiring the whole bucket to be “wasted”.

And another irritated statement from a boss who had removed the guard from a table saw because it slowed down production, before production was brought to a standstill when my client nearly sliced his thumb off.

If you are an apprentice, you should not be working alone and should raise it with your employer and training provider if it is happening. The whole reason that you are an apprentice is that you are learning the job and can’t be expected to know the right way to do things or to spot hidden dangers.

Tragedies like the one above are fortunately rare, but if you do not feel that the way you are working is safe, you should raise it with your employer. You can always get a new job; you can’t replace a lost limb or life.

If you’ve been injured at work, or just would like some support around unsafe working practices, contact our personal injury team at Malcolm C Foy and Co Ltd. You can also read more about compensation for accidents at work or get in touch via our contact page.