Museum fined after girl visitor maimed

A museum was fined £12,000 yesterday after one of its interactive exhibits maimed a little girl.

The five-year-old, from Leeds, needed three operations to save the fingers on her left hand after it was hit by fan blades spinning at 2,250 revolutions per minute.

Surgeons battled to repair the damage done to her index and middle fingers but the girl was left permanently disfigured following the accident at The Discovery Museum in Newcastle.

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Museum bosses admitted a charge under Section 3(i) of the Health and Safety at Work Act at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

Prosecutor Carol Forster described how one of the museum’s exhibits was being repaired when the accident happened on August 17 last year.

The gravity-defying exhibit Floating On Air was part of the museum’s Science Maze, designed to educate children in the basic principles of physics.

Powered by three high-speed fans channelling air through three hoses, it demonstrated how mass and air pressure worked by appearing to float a ping pong ball in mid air.

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The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was on a day trip to the museum with her sister and grandmother when she put her hand into the gap left by one of the hoses, which had been removed for repairs.

She was seriously hurt when her fingers hit the revolving blades.

She has since endured three major operations but her fingers remain bent and scarred.

The accident could easily have been prevented had a safety grate been fixed over the hole, Mrs Forster said.

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Fining the Newcastle City Council-run museum 12,000 and imposing 7,733 costs, chairman of the bench William Wright said he was horrified by the accident.

Mitigating, Rod Searl said the museum was profoundly sorry for what happened, and had spent 130,000 reviewing health and safety procedures since.

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