Man wins £1.9million payout after 800kg steel pallet left his leg 'flat as a phone'
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GB News
A father-of-two has won a £1.9million payout after a 800kg steel pallet crushed his leg in a workplace accident.
The load crushed Wayne Hatton’s legs during a night shift at Amber Precast Ltd’s factory on January 14, 2021.
The 50-year-old from Dunswell, East Yorkshire, had to have his right leg amputated and two toes removed from his left foot after the load fell on him during a night shift.
The pallet was being removed from a reinforced concrete cast when it fell onto the father-of-two, who had only recently been employed by the firm as a supervisor.
Wayne (left) and his mother Marine
Health and Safety Executive
Hatton then spent seven weeks in hospital and now has a prosthetic leg after his right lower leg was amputated.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the pallet had not been secured onto the lifting chains of the overhead crane before being removed from the concrete cast. This meant the pallet was not supported whilst being moved.
The company was fined £60,000 and ordered to pay more than £5,000 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching health and safety laws at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on January 9, 2025.
However, Hatton had already received more than £1.9million in compensation as part of civil action.
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Wayne (right) and his father Henry
Health and Safety Executive
Hatton said: "My training was basically to just watch what the lads do. I unbolted this frame exactly as they did and this one wasn't supposed to fall out, but it actually fell out.
"One of the lads dived out of the way, as I turned around it came down and fell on my legs, I'd unbolted the frame but I'd done exactly what I'd got shown to do. That got mentioned in court and the judge agreed, it fell down on me and I had a big drill on the left side of my leg, and that stopped it from taking my left leg off, but my right leg was severed.
The father, who praised his "brilliant NHS doctors and nurses", added: 'When I was laid under the frame I was saying 'I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die', and my colleague Alan Eggenton basically saved my life. He took his top off in the freezing cold and tried to stop the blood and spoke to the paramedics.
"When I was in the ambulance, I could hear paramedics saying there's severe trauma to my right leg, and I kept saying 'no, it's my left, it's my left', because I didn't know my right one were severed. I couldn't feel it, it was as flat as a phone, the surgeon said."
HSE inspector Jane Fox said: "This incident could so easily have been avoided with the correct instruction and implementation of an agreed safe working procedure.
"Amber Precast Ltd left its employees to work out their own methods of completing the pallet removal task, instead of providing them with suitable training and equipment so it could be done safely every time."
GB News has approached Amber Precast for a comment.
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