A New Zealand woman who lost three fingertips in a pet food packing factory has been awarded a payout, while her former employer has been fined $132,000 over the incident from June 2018.
On the day of the incident, the worker was changing the packing film that had gotten stuck to the top of the machinery. As she attempted to remove the packing film, her fingers were crushed between large heat panels that are used to seal the film to the packaging.
She suffered third-degree burns to her first two fingers and thumb, all of which were later amputated.
WorkSafe’s acting Chief Inspector Danielle Henry described the injuries sustained as “life-changing”.
“It’s highly disappointing that a company WorkSafe had seriously engaged with on multiple occasions still failed to take health and safety seriously, allowing its workers to operate dangerous machinery with no safeguarding,” she said.
It was heard that the company had no guarding in place to protect workers during routine maintenance or interruptions to the machinery’s movement. The company had also previously received three improvement notices, and a prohibition notice relating to its health and safety systems.
“The issuing of four notices on other machinery in the workplace should have been a clear indication to Addiction Food NZ Limited that they needed to be completing a full risk assessment of machinery before allowing workers to operate it,” Henry said.