Roller slipping into landfill one of four 'serious' health and safety incidents for Wellington City Council

One incident involved a worker slipping and lacerating his finger on the hedge trimmer he was using. Photo/file

A roller slipping into a landfill and a waste truck colliding with a garage are two incidents that are being fully investigated by a health and safety group in Wellington.

There were four serious health and safety incidents involving Wellington City Council staff or contractors in the year ending June 2017 that had to be passed on to a steering group to be looked into.

The incidents were outlined in a health safety and security report in a subcommittee agenda.

The first accident happened in November last year when a contractor was operating a roller parallel to a batter edge on the landfill. The machine slipped off the edge and rolled, but the operator was not injured, thanks to the roll cage.

Another incident from February this year happened when a truck driver got out of his vehicle to collect waste, and the truck rolled back, crashing into another vehicle and two garages.

There is an ongoing investigation into the engineering controls to see if there is some way to make sure an unattended vehicle can't move, removing the risk of human error.

In April, an employee suffered a fracture and a laceration to his finger after he slipped and cut it on a hedge trimmer he was using.

The report said the employee "removed his hand from the machine to steady himself" and in doing so, "his finger made contact with the moving blades".

The investigation has resulted in a new requirement for gloves to have a mechanical cut resistance rating of 5/5.

The fourth incident did not involve any accidents, but was still considered serious.

A horticulture and tree team were working together to prune branches in October 2016. Members of the public called Worksafe as the teams were working from the top of their toolbox behind the cab of the truck, without any fall protection in place.

WorkSafe went to the site and stopped the work until a new method was agreed upon.

The investigation showed there was inadequate planning before the work was started, the methods being used were not standard practice or compliant with industry guidelines, and traffic management was not good enough.

The report said there were 29 hazard categories where there was risk to council workers or those in the vicinity of council workplaces.

Eight of those categories have been identified as needing review over a two-year period.

The categories are personal confrontation or working alone, vehicles on and off the road, working at height, health and impairment, hazardous substances, working with or in the vicinity of services, asset failure, and other mobile equipment.