By Daniel Cattanach

Last updated 12:38, Friday, 18 April 2008

A Sellafield worker is still being treated in hospital for injuries he received at the nuclear plant more than a week ago.

Thorp: Accident victim was squashed against metal handrail in the receipt and storage facility

The man, who has not been named but comes from Millom, was working in the Thorp receipt and storage facility – which houses fuel transport flasks prior to reprocessing – when a crane carrying one of the huge flasks swung around and squashed him against a metal handrail.

The man, who works as a plant operator in Thorp, was taken to the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven following the accident, which happened last Thursday, and is still being treated for his injuries.

An investigation is being carried out into how the accident happened.

A spokeswoman for Sellafield Ltd said: “It appears that the worker became trapped between a fuel transport flask and a handrail.

“Sellafield emergency services were immediately called; initially the individual was taken to the site surgery and then transferred to the West Cumberland Hospital.

“The worker’s family was contacted and went to the hospital.

“At this stage we have no further details on the health of the employee. One of our site doctors is keeping in touch with the hospital and the family.

“Clearly we are very disappointed that this accident happened, as our aim is to be accident and incident free.

“It is not acceptable that any of our workforce get injured whilst at their place of work.

“We will thoroughly investigate the root cause of this accident to ensure that lessons are learned and shared throughout the business.”

The spokeswoman said there had been no danger of a radiation leak as a result of the accident.

She added the Health and Safety Executive had been informed of the incident and would be carrying out an investigation, as well as Sellafield Ltd conducting it’s own inquiry.

The accident was classed as a conventional accident and not a radiological incident.