Manual Handling Young worker paralysed in pallet spill A meat products firm pleaded guilty to a charge under s2(1) of Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 following an incident where a young employee was left paralysed by an unstable pallet load that collapsed on to him whilst working as a storeman. Rolls of packaging film were typically delivered as double stacked pallets on a pallet truck but on this occasion they arrived stacked three high. The uppermost pallet was unstable having moved in transit and whilst four people were attempted to stabilise the load, the contents of the top pallet, weighing approximately 300kg, fell. The HSE inspector found that an assessment of manual handling tasks had not taken place and that more action should have been taken to avoid manual handling. The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay the Health and Safety Executives full costs of £1967.