A GYM-goer was taken to hospital after a piece of equipment fell on him ... just days after leisure centre bosses unveiled a host of new facilities.
Waterside Farm leisure Centre, on Canvey, unveiled its new extension to the gym on Friday including a new “boxing zone”.
However, bosses were forced to close part of the gym on Sunday after a boxing rig toppled over and injured a man.
The Fort was immediately closed to the public pending a health and safety investigation and only re-opened yesterday afternoon.
A spokesman for Castle Point council confirmed that the equipment had been re-installed and was no safe to use.
They said: “We opened “the Fort” an extension to the gym last Friday but unfortunately on Sunday the boxing rig toppled over and injured a member of the public who was using it at the time.
“The injured man went to hospital as a precaution but fortunately although he suffered bruising the injury was not serious.
“The Fort was immediately closed to the public pending an internal health and safety investigation with the installation company.
“Beaverfit returned to Waterside Farm on Monday to reinstall the equipment using stronger fixings and made modifications to the equipment to ensure it is safe to use and there is no danger of it toppling over again.”
Beaverfit installation manager said: "‘The Authority advised us before installation that the sub-base surface was concrete, so we used the fixtures suitable for that surface. It turned out that the sub-base was uncured (green) screed, which we were not informed of and this was confirmed by the health and safety officer from the Authority.
"Even though BeaverFit were not at fault here, we were onsite within 24 hours and provided the correct fittings for the screed surface which we were not originally made aware of – all free of charge, reflective of our customer service. With the correct information from the Authority, this incident would not have happened."
Council bosses have insisted that appropriate action needs to be taken to ensure another accident like this doesn’t happen again.
Godfrey Isaacs, councillor in charge of community safety said: “I hope that if an incident like this did happen then I’m sure that the council officers and centre management would be taking appropriate action to rectify it and that there will be an investigation to find out what went wrong.”
Canvey Winter Gardens ward councillor, Peter Greig said: “It’s an unfortunate incident and we need to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.
“I send my well wishes to the person that was injured.”
The extension of the fitness suite saw multiple rigs fitted, which include several squat racks, peg walls, landmines, pull up bars, rope climbs and a boxing zone.
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