Gas company fined £160,000 after employee overcome by fumes

A speciality gas company based in Birmingham has been fined £160,000 after an employee was overcome by vapour while disposing of redundant gas bottles.

Stoke Combined Court heard how four members of the Air Liquide (UK) Ltd Emergency Response Team were disposing of redundant gas bottles at the company’s site in Tunstall.

This involved two workers cutting the bottles open inside a purpose-built box, using a hacksaw operated from the outside.

During the incident, one of the workers, wearing a bomb disposal suit and respiratory protective equipment (RPE) was carrying a bottle they had just cut open, when around 50 ml of highly hazardous liquid leaked from the bottle onto the floor.

Vapour from the spill drifted downwind affecting two unprotected workers, one so badly he collapsed to the floor.

Both were taken to hospital for treatment and tests and later discharged.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the system of work was inadequate.

It said the emergency response team were not adequately informed or instructed to deal with the hazardous contents of the bottles. The work was not adequately supervised or nor was the very real risk of explosion adequately controlled, HSE investigators said.

Air Liquide (UK), of Station Road, Coleshill, was also ordered to pay costs of £22,611.60.

HSE inspector Matthew Lea said: “Employers have a duty to devise and train their workers in safe systems of work and make sure they are being followed. That starts with understanding the hazardous properties of the chemicals likely to be present in the bottles they required to handle. Their failures put the lives of their workers at significant risk.”