A man suffered crush injuries to two fingers after he was involved in an accident involving a sausage roll machine.

The unnamed agency worker was working at the Excellent Food Company in Leeds at the time of the accident in March 2012. He had only been employed at the site for eight weeks when the incident happened.

The 26 year old man was emptying the hopper on top of a sausage roll machine, which holds the fillings for the rolls and for pasties. He was emptying the contents of the hopper with a jug, although it was too large to reach down to the very bottom. Instead, he put his hand into the bottom of the hopper to remove the remaining contents but his fingers came into contact with the machine’s hydraulic rams.

The rams crushed two of his fingers and severely damaged them. His third finger was so badly damaged that it had to be stitched back on by medical professionals. Both that finger and his middle finger suffered permanent nerve damage in the accident.

The HSE investigated and found that a safety guard on the machine was not working. They had previously served a notice on the company to improve safety guarding problems back in December 2011.

The case came to court last week, and Excellent Food Company Yorkshire Ltd pleaded guilty to breaking work equipment regulations. A fine of £5,000 was issued to the company by Magistrates.

Compensation of £220,000 has been paid out to pupils injured in school accidents in Essex.

The figure is reported by the East Anglian Daily Times after they made a Freedom of Information Request to Essex County Council (who are responsible for schools in the area). They state that £227,137 was paid out by the council from 2008 to 2010.

Noticeable reported claims include a payout of £23,580 to a child who was injured when they fell off monkey bars that were found to be defective. In a similar accident, another pupil caused a payout of £24,650 after they fell from climbing equipment. These figures include the legal costs as well as the compensation paid to the pupils.

The highest payout (£30,544) was made after a trip down stairs resulted in injury occurring. A slip on a wet floor also cost the council £27,780.

A spokesperson for the council told the paper that it takes its health, safety and wellbeing responsibilities seriously.

The spokesperson clearly stated that all claims were investigated thoroughly, with payments being awarded in cases where negligence has occurred.

The authority is responsible for over 500 schools in the area.

A rail infrastructure company has been fined after a man injured his hands in two separate accidents at work.

Keith Hawley was working at Balfour Beatty Rail Track Systems Ltd on the occasion of both accidents. The first occurred in May 2009 when he was moving a piece of rail track into a press machine. His right hand was injured when it became accidentally trapped between the rail and a roller.

The second accident happened close to a year later in almost identical circumstances. His left hand was accidentally crushed this time and severely injured. The first accident left him with a broken finger, whilst the second caused such crush damages to his little finger that it had to be partially amputated.

The Health and Safety Executive’s investigation found that the machine did not have adequate guarding. The company was in the process of installing a safety guard system after the issue was highlighted by the first accident. However, the guarding system had not been fitted at the time of the second accident.

The HSE prosecuted Balfour Beatty Rail Track Systems Ltd for breaking health and safety law. A fine of £8,000 was issued at court last week after the firm were found guilty of the charges.

A nurse is seeking compensation of £1.8million after she was injured slipping on spilt food at work.

Michelle Lay was the victim of the accident back in May 2004. She was working as a nursing assistant at an NHS mental health unit in Peterborough at the time.

The accident happened whilst Mrs Lay was unloading a food trolley. Leftover food had spilt onto the floor, causing her to slip and fall.

Mrs Lay suffered serious injuries in the fall. She suffered a back injury that left her in severe pain and resulted in an operation at a later date to fuse part of her cervical spine. She had to leave her position at the unit due to her injuries.

The Peterborough Telegraph reports that the NHS admits liability for Mrs Lay’s back injuries but disputes her claim that the fall also caused her neck damage.

The paper reports that she has made a compensation claim against the NHS for her injuries, and back in 2007, was initially seeking £100,000 compensation. However, her case was updated to include the injuries to her neck, and she is now reported to be seeking £1.8million compensation.

Lawyers for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust argue that her neck problems were started by an accident she had back in 1993, 11 years before the floor slip.

The case is ongoing and a decision will be made at a later date.

A man has had his hand crushed in an accident at a sweet factory in Northampton.

The male worker – whose name has not been reported – was employed at Tilley’s Sweets factory when the incident happened in June 2011. He was operating a sweet manufacturing machine when it became jammed.

A build up of sweets was causing the jam so the 28 year old put his hand in to remove the blockage. However, when he did this, his glove became caught and his hand was dragged into the machine.

The man suffered serious damage to his right hand in the incident. The injury required him to undergo surgical procedures on the tendons and undergo physiotherapy. The worker was also required to take four months off work because of his injury.

The HSE reports that Tilley’s Sweets have just been prosecuted for breaking work equipment regulations in regards to the accident. A fine of £1,500 was issued this week because of this.

The HSE found after the accident a safety guard could have stopped the incident from happening. They immediately stopped further work taking place on the machine until a guard was fitted.

A golfer is being sued by a golf spotter after he was left blind in one eye when he was struck by a golf ball.

David McMahon was working as a ball spotter at the Levan Links course during the Scottish Amateur Champion of Champions competition in April 2009. He was on the 6th hole and had just been dealing with a couple who had strayed from a path at the side of the hole.

Gavin Dear and another golfer were coming down the 6th hole. The other golfer had hit his shot onto the fairway, whilst Mr Dear had hit his ball into the rough.

Mr McMahon claims that he was then hit in the eye by Mr Dear’s ball as he was walking back to his golf buggy. The force of the ball caused him to suffer a traumatic rupture to his right eyeball. This has left him blind in one eye.

The Herald Scotland reports that he is now suing for compensation. He is thought to be seeking £50,000 but the other side is contesting liability. Mr McMahon asserts that he heard no warnings (such as the traditional shout of “fore”) before the ball struck him. His team argue that had Mr Dean exercised reasonable care then the injury would have happened.

Mr Dear’s team counter that reasonable care was taken and that there was no reason to believe it was unsafe to take the shot. They assert that McMahon emerged suddenly and without warning from behind the golf buggy.

The case is ongoing.

A fairground owner has been fined after a 12 year old girl fell out of a ride and was injured.

The injured girl was sat on the High Roller ride at the Lostock Hall Carnival in Preston when the accident happened in July 2011. The ride consists of a row of seats that rise off the ground in circular motions.

The 12 year old was sat on the end seat but fell from this position as the ride was swinging through the air. She landed on the platform base of the ride and suffered serious injury.

The girl sustained multiple injuries, including fracturing her pelvis in five separate places. She also cracked a bone in her spine and lacerated her bladder. She has been left with numerous scars from the injuries that she suffered.

The HSE reports that the owner of the fairground has just been prosecuted in regards to the accident. A safety notice had been issued about the ride after an accident at a different fairground in Halifax in June 2010. This notice prohibited fairgrounds with the ride from letting people sit in the end seat until they had fitted safety bars.

A copy of the notice had been handed by the HSE to the fairground owner – Gary Gore – a year before this accident took place. Despite this, there was no additional safety barrier in place when the 12 year old fell from the end seat.

A fine of £18,000 was issued to Mr Gore last week for breaking health and safety law.

An NHS Trust in the North-West of England, are reported to have paid out more than £4million as a result of compensation claims in the last year.

Figures reported by the St Helens Reporter show that the NHS Trust responsible for running St Helens Hospital and Whiston Hospital paid out £4.1million during the last yearly reporting period.

This money was paid out to patients who have suffered due to the negligence of medical staff working for the Trust. The figure also includes legal fees paid to the patients’ representatives.

The amount of compensation paid by this particular NHS Trust has risen by over a million pounds from the previous years figures.

Other nearby NHS Trusts have seen even larger compensation bills over the last yearly period. The Trust responsible for Tameside Hospital, which is in the area east of Manchester, paid out over £13million in the same time frame.

Example claims made against Tameside Hospital are reported to include a claim made after a swab was left inside a patients’ body after an operation.

The announcement of these figures comes at the same time as The Sun newspaper are reporting that £1.3million compensation has been paid out to male NHS patients who have had testicles wrongly removed by surgeons. In most cases the surgery was later found to be unnecessary, but in some cases the wrong testicle was removed.

Compensation totalling £170,000 has been awarded to a scout leader who injured his back on a fireman’s pole at an assault course in Wales.

Scout leader, Robert Wilson, was injured whilst taking part on the Challenge Valley assault course at Clyne Farm Centre in August 2009. He had taken his troop to the centre but was injured when traversing down a 10 foot high fireman’s pole.

He landed at the bottom of the pole on his bottom and fractured a vertebra in his spine. He had to be airlifted to hospital where he underwent surgery.

Wales Online report that he made a claim for compensation against the centre, and a ruling in the case has just been made at court. The court heard how Mr Wilson had expressed reservations about going down the pole due to his weight and lack of fitness.

The judge in the case ruled that the instructor had not given adequate instructions on how to descend the pole safely in wet conditions. The judge rejected counter allegations that Mr Wilson was trying to show off in front of his troop.

It is reported that Mr Wilson will now receive compensation of nearly £170,000 for his injuries. This sum includes money to cover earnings that he lost due to the accident.

An agency worker was injured at an engine part manufacturing firm in an accident involving unguarded machinery.

The man was working as a trainee operator on the date of the accident in October 2010. He was on the premises of Mahle Engine Systems UK Ltd in Kilmarnock.

When the incident occurred, he was using a running mill and was trying to free a strip of metal that had become trapped. Whilst he was doing this, his glove became caught in the nip of the machine and his hand was subsequently pulled between two rollers.

The crush from the rollers caused him to suffer two broken fingers. He also required surgery to repair damage to the tissue on three of his digits.

The accident to the worker was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive who found that although the man was aware of the risk of the nip points he thought the danger was not present because the running mill had been turned off. However, the rollers on the machine were powered separately.

At the start of this week, Mahle Engine Systems UK Ltd were fined £8,000 for breaking the Health and Safety at Work Act. It was found that the firm did not do a sufficient risk assessment, provide necessary information for the job, nor fit a guard to prevent access to the rollers.

It is reported that improvements have now been made at the site, including new safety guards on the rolling mills.