A hotel worker from Bolton has successfully made a compensation claim of over a thousand pounds from his employers after falling from a tree whilst trimming the branches.
64 year old Peter Aspinall made the work accident compensation claim after cutting down the branch on which his ladder was leaning whilst trying to prune a sycamore tree located within the grounds of the hotel with a bow saw, according to an article in the Daily Telegraph.
After cutting the branch that supported him, Mr Aspinall fell fourteen feet to the ground and broke his heel. He also suffered ligament damage and was forced to undergo surgery, leaving him in hospital for ten days following the accident. After suffering the personal injury, Aspinall decided to make a compensation claim against his employer, the Egerton House Hotel near Bolton in Lancashire.
Health and Safety professionals concluded that the residential venue failed to undertake a thorough risk assessment pertaining to the risks associated with the gardening work within its grounds, as well as not training him properly in how to position his ladder.
As a result, the owners of the hotel pleaded guilty to breaches in their health and safety policy and are now facing a one thousand pound fine, along with a thousand pounds in council costs and a further fifteen pounds in victim surcharges.
A legal representative for Mr Aspinall claims he is embarrassed that the ‘laurel and hardy’ style accident occurred but that he is now making a civil claim for the injuries that he sustained as a result.
The hotel owner, Jan Hampton, rebuffed Aspinall’s comments by stating that her hotel has an excellent record of customer care and that she would have employed specialist tree surgeons to carry out the job had she been on the premises at the time of the incident.
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Yep, as in the last quote of the article…that’s why you need to hire a trained professional tree surgeon…I thought rope access techniques were only to be used according to HSE regulations and that ladder work is banned – even for window cleaners etc. But don’t quote me on this, all the info will be found in here somewhere:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/index.htm
http://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/resources/casestudies.htm
Comment by Wychwood Forestry Tree Surgeons — May 2, 2010 @ 7:03 pm