A meat processing company has been fined $332,000 dollars after a 2017 incident saw one of their worker's hands amputated by a piece of unsafe machinery.
Alliance Group Limited appeared in the Timaru District Court yesterday after an inexperienced employee, who had only worked at the company for five days, was left unsupervised on a task.
As a result, the worker opened a section of machinery and placed his hand inside, leading to an amputation.
WorkSafe New Zealand's investigation into the incident found Alliance Group had failed to provide adequate guarding on the machine which was used to dehydrate blood into powder.
WorkSafe's Deputy General Manager for Investigations and Specialist Services Simon Humphries said Alliance Group's failure to ensure the health and safety of workers had led to an incident that will impact a man's life forever.
"This is a stark reminder to others operating machinery in every industry to ensure machinery is adequately guarded," he said.
"New Zealand has rigorous and accessible standards for machine guarding – adhering to them and mitigating the risks your machinery poses is imperative to keeping workers safe from harm."
The maximum penalty for failing to ensure the health and safety of workers is a fine not exceeding $1.5 million.
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