His employer was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found the company had allowed porters to load the waste compactor in an unsafe manner.

Manchester Crown Court heard the man had been collecting waste cardboard from around the hospital on Sunday 8 October 2006. He was found by a colleague with his head and arms under the lid of one of the compactors.

The HSE investigation concluded that the most likely explanation for  man’s death was that he leaned against a lever while leaning over the waste compactor, causing the lid to snap down.

The manufacturer’s recommendations for the compactor stated that it should be loaded from the front, away from the controls, but the court was told it was standard practice for porters to load it from the side.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2012/coi-nw-40iss.htm

It’s a sad fact that in hospitals and in the private sector compactors, shredders and other equipment items are used in a dangerous manner, with poor maintenance, inadequate or defective guards and controls, and SOPs that are not properly constructed or simply not applied.

Right across the waste sectors pressure of work and cost constraints, or perhaps simply ignorance, are often found as underlying causes. Repairs may be delayed or set aside, or attempted by site staff as enthusiastic amateurs when an effective professional repair using the appropriate components is required.

The cost, when things go wrong, can be absolutely devastating.