STEEL maker Corus has been fined £15,000 by magistrates and ordered to pay £6,248 costs after a crane operator was crushed in a workplace accident.

Jonathan Laverick was struck by a 1.7-tonne section of steel tubing after it fell on top of him.

He suffered a number of serious injuries, including a broken leg, five broken ribs and a punctured lung, and spent several weeks in hospital, where doctors placed him in an induced coma.

The 41-year-old had been operating a remote-controlled crane at Corus Tubes, in Brenda Road, Hartlepool, which used a magnetic attachment to lift “rafts” of steel tubes.

Hartlepool Magistrates’ Court was told that a section of the tubing snagged on a wall while it was being carried by the crane, causing it to fall to the ground, hitting Mr Laverick.

Bruno Porter, prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, said its investigations showed there was no safe place to stand while operating the crane.

He said: “Some operators stated that they stood in a doorway for an escape route should anything happen [to the load being carried].”

Dominic Adamson, for Corus, which pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act, said it had carried out a thorough investigation into the accident, on April 27, last year, and expressed “sincere regret” over Mr Laverick’s injuries.

He said the firm had since installed a gantry for the crane operator to sit on, taking him out of the immediate environment.

Mr Adamson acknowledged Corus could have done more to reduce the risk to Mr Laverick, but said that that he had made an individual error in allowing the steel to make contact with the wall.

He said: “This was an unfortunate, isolated incident, where individual error was substantially the cause.

“Corus, however, did not bury its head in the sand after this incident and took the opportunity to improve its systems.”

He said Mr Laverick was a fully-trained, experienced crane operator and safe working procedures were in place.

Magistrates said the accident could have been more serious, “if not fatal”.

Speaking after the case, Mr Laverick, of Willow Sage Court, Stockton, said he had now gone back to work at Corus, but only through necessity, despite still feeling the after-effects of the accident.

He said he still had problems with the leg that was broken, suffered cramps in his left foot and had been warned by doctors he could get arthritis in his back in later life.

The father-of-two, who is now pursuing a compensation claim, said: “I am still alive, but I will never be the same person that I used to be.”