Fast food chain KFC has been fined nearly £1m after errors left two workers with agonising burns from boiling hot gravy.
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) worker Joshua Arnold was scalded across his arms when a boiling tub of gravy tilted and spilled as he took it out of a microwave oven.
The 16-year-old had paper towels put over his injuries and was sent to hospital alone in a taxi instead of an ambulance.
It court it was apaprently heard that two bosses went to see how he was, then made a phone call to ask what first-aid they should administer.
Joshua kept his arms under running water for 20 minutes and was told to put wet paper towels over his injuries.
The towels dried over the raw burns and had to be peeled off in an agonising procedure at hospital.
After Joshua’s accident, CCTV footage shows him at one point sitting on he floor as he nurses his injuries with colleagues dodging around him.
A second incident was also heard in court which happened in December 2015 when Heather Storer was also burnt by red-hot gravy.
Heather suffered third-degree burns to her right arm, hands, chest and stomach as she lifted a tub from the microwave.
Neither employee used gauntlets to protect themselves from injury as the fast food company guidelines dictate.
Joshua said he had never been shown any guidance on how to carry out the heating-up task safely and had done it only once before, whilst supervised. He has settled on an out-of-court compensation package with KFC
There should have been two green gloves and a spare set at all restaurants, but there was just one when Joshua’s accident happened.
CCTV footage and Ms Storer’s statement indicate there were no gauntlets at all at the time of Heather’s accident.
The company admitted two charges of failing in a duty of care to employees, and was ordered to pay an £800,000 fine as well as a £150,000 fine.
They were also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £18,699 and a victim surcharge of £120.
In the UK alone KFC has 880 restaurants with 235 of these actually owned by them and the rest are franchises, totalling an annual turnover of around £450m.
The company employs a specialist health and safety team, and there are apparently now warning stickers in their microwaves.
