Western Australia recently prosecuted a company over an incident where a worker was blinded in one eye by a nail that ricocheted from a nail gun. According to a WorkSafeWA media release:
“The injured contractor was using a nail gun to attach steel holding straps to roof timbers. The nail gun had been purchased 12 months earlier, and came with an operating manual that provided safety instructions.
One of the safety instructions was that the nail gun was “for use with timber to timber fixing or materials of similar or lesser density”, but Mr Vlasschaert and the contractor had been using the nail gun to attach steel straps for 12 months without incident.
On the day of the incident, the contractor had experienced several ricochets where the nail had failed to go through the steel straps and instead flew into the air. Mr Vlasschaert asked him if everything was alright, and contractor said it was, so he had been left to carry on the work.
Soon after this conversation, the contractor was struck in the eye by a nail that had ricocheted, resulting in the permanent loss of sight in his left eye.”
The worker mistook his sunglasses as safety glasses. Protective eyewear was available in the employer’s car at the domestic building site.
This prosecution, which resulted in a $A25,000 fine, highlights several relevant OHS issues. Continue reading “Nail gun incident results in $25k fine and lifelong blindness”
