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Fast food giant’s $5m fix after SA worker injury

Jan 30, 2015

Hungry Jack’s will spend more than $5 million replacing all of its fryers across the country following an accident in an Adelaide restaurant which left a young worker with third-degree burns.

The fast-food giant was yesterday fined $90,000 in the Magistrates Court over a 2012 oil burn incident involving a young kitchen hand.

The worker suffered third-degree burns to 10 per cent of his body and nerve damage after he slipped and fell into a machine filtering hot oil outside of a deep-fryer, the judgement says.

Hungry Jack’s pleaded guilty to one count of breaching occupational health and safety laws.

The company accepted that because the filtering component of the deep fryer was broken, the oil had to be filtered using an external machine.

That machine had a lid, but could not be operated with the lid on, exposing the employee to an open container of hot oil, which he fell into.

As a result of the incident, Hungry Jack’s conducted a review of its policies and procedures regarding oil filtering, and decided to replace all deep fryers in SA that had broken filtering systems – requiring the use of the external machine – with working, self-filtering deep fryers.

Further, Hungry Jack’s has committed to spend an estimated $5.3 million replacing all of its fryers across the country with new self-filtering versions, the judgement says.

Immediately after the incident at the Edwardstown store, staff took the injured worker to a sink to run cold water run over his burns, however no ambulance was called.

Becoming concerned about this, the worker used a mobile phone to call his father, who took him to hospital.

In his victim impact statement, the worker described his physical injuries, which required skin grafts, and depression, ostracisation from his friends and low self-esteem issues which he said resulted from his injuries.

He had been working at the Edwardstown store for less than a month. He returned to work after the incident but could not face the area where he was injured or the smell of cooking oil and resigned.

The summary of allegations against Hungry Jack’s said the failure to call an ambulance did not cause the employee any further injuries or make his burns substantially worse, but caused him to remain in pain longer than he would have if an ambulance were called.

Hungry Jack’s was convicted for a similar offence in 2006 following a 2003 incident in which a young worker was burnt while disposing of hot oil – and an ambulance was not called.

“The injured employee in the prior incident was left waiting in the backroom of the restaurant until the mother of another worker attended to collect her some and took it upon herself to take the injured employee to hospital,” a summary of the allegations against the company reads.

“There is an apparent failure on the part of the defendant to learn from the previous incident the need to have in place an appropriate system for treating injured workers,” it continues.

Whilst Hungry Jack’s conceded that an ambulance should have been called earlier in the latest case, and that “it may be that the procedures and training put into place after the prior incident may have fallen from focus over a period of time”.

However, the summary of submissions on behalf of Hungry Jack’s says the company “did learn a lesson from the previous incident, addressed issues and moved on”.

Hungry Jack’s also said training had been given to both the employee and assistant manager involved in the 2012 incident, which addressed the handling of hot oil during an external filtering process and emphasised the wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE).

“If the employee had been wearing the PPE the burns suffered by him would not have been as significant or may not have occurred,” the summary of Hungry Jack’s submissions reads.

“… the responsibility rests with the restaurant manager and assistant managers to ensure that all employees […] comply with SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) and safety measures.”

Hungry Jack’s said it had interviewed the assistant manager following the incident, who had admitted he should have made the employee wear personal protective equipment, and had attended a refresher training course in processes related to the incident eight weeks beforehand.

The assistant manager was fired by the company.

In his judgement, Industrial Magistrate Michael Ardlie agreed that various Hungry Jack’s procedures would have prevented or minimised the extent of the injuries, had they been adhered to.

“The assistant manager did not properly supervise the employee in particular in ralation to the wearing of the PPE that was available,” the judgement reads.

“I am satisfied that the measures undertaken since this incident are such that a like incident is unlikely to happen again in the workplace.”

“Whilst I am satisfied that the defendant is now taking steps to set out clear guidelines as to who is to call and ambulance it will need an ongoing enforcement of such procedures to make it workable.

“It is an all too frequent occurrent in health and safety matters where despite the presense of proper procedures and policies there is a failure on the part of those in charge to insist on adherence…”

Hungry Jack’s apologised to the worker and his father.

The company has forwarded safety notices related to the process of filtering oil to all employees, and said its first aid procedure now requires that an ambulance be called in medical emergencies.

Hungry Jack’s avoided the maximum penalty for the subsequent offence of $600,000. Because of its early guilty plea, a notional penalty of $150,000 was reduced to $90,000, plus costs and the victims of crime levy.

Hungry Jack’s employs nearly 19,000 people in Australia, including around 1,800 in South Australia.

The company issued InDaily a one-line statement this morning: “Hungry Jack’s has put in place measures to ensure this incident is not repeated.”

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