Scottish engineering firm fined £50,000 after worker death

A Scottish engineering company has been fined £50,000 after a worker was fatally injured when a wall collapsed and threw him from a scissor lift. Steven Tervit, a 32-year-old labourer and father of three, died from his injuries the day after the incident, which occurred on November 9, 2022, at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland in Renfrew.

Tervit was working at a height of approximately four metres, removing polyurethane wall panels from a steel-framed cleanroom at the Westway Business Park facility. The cleanroom had previously housed a welding robot. While he was on the scissor lift platform, the remaining wall panels collapsed, striking the platform and ejecting him onto the concrete warehouse floor below.

He was taken to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, where he was found to have suffered a traumatic brain injury, rib fractures, lung contusions, and fractures to his right thigh and left shin. He died in the hospital on November 10, 2022.

Tervit’s employer, Food Process Engineering Limited of Hamilton, had been subcontracted to remove the panels as part of a wider dismantling operation. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found...