A young meatworker two weeks into a job in Hawke's Bay was "robbed" of the full function of a hand due to "unsafe machinery".
Alesana Baker had just left high school when he took up a job at Progressive Meats Limited in Hastings in 2020.
Open Justice has reported Baker lost a scholarship to play volleyball in the United States due to the injury.
WorkSafe said Baker had been trained to use a lamb brisket cutter by a coworker who started on the same day as him.
The coworker had demonstrated how to use the machine with one hand, but when Baker went to follow suit, his right hand was struck by the brisket cutter blades.
The October incident saw his thumb, index finger, middle finger and ring finger partially amputated.
After a trial in December 2022, Judge Geoff Rea found Progressive Meats guilty of health and safety failures, WorkSafe said. "Training was completely inadequate and...positively dangerous", his decision noted.
WorkSafe said supervisors, senior management and the company owners were unaware of the brisket cutter being used single-handedly and, until this incident, did not believe it could be used in such a way.
"Alesana was at the very start of his working life when this awful injury was inflicted. It's unfair for him to have been robbed of the full function of his hand," WorkSafe area investigation manager Paul Budd said.
"I echo the judge's view that proper training must always be given and the safety aspects explained when workers deal with potentially dangerous equipment such as this."
Progressive Meats was sentenced at the Hastings District Court yesterday. It was ordered to pay a fine of $280,000 and reparations of $48,000.
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