A COUNCIL employee being hit on the head with a pineapple is among more than 40 accidents logged by workers at a Suffolk authority.

ACCIDENTS logged by council employees include one being hit on the head by a pineapple and another who was bitten by a dog.

The 44 incidents involving employees of St Edmundsbury Borough Council were recorded between April 1 and August 31 this year.

They fall under categories such as hit by a moving object, injured by an animal, disease and dangerous occurrence, and were in a report to the borough council’s central safety panel.

One employee was picking up boxes at Bury St Edmunds market in May when a trader threw a pineapple at a bin and it hit him on the head.

As the council worker tried to stop the piece of fruit his thumb bent back.

On another occasion a loader was standing on the road loading bins onto the back of a dust cart when a blue Peugeot went to overtake and ran over his foot.

His foot got caught on the mud guard and he was dragged down the side of the cart. His upper arm and right foot were hurt.

Other incidents included an agency loader being bitten by a dog as they put recycling sacks through a mail box, but they suffered no injury as they were wearing gloves, as well as a worker being exposed to a harmful substance when using a power wash to clean bins.

The spray from the bins hit his arms and chest causing them to come out in a rash.

The dangerous occurrence happened in April when a road worker was covered in oil by a hydraulic hose, suffering no injury, and the incident of disease involved a gardener feeling tingling in their hands and feet after using a machine to scarify football pitches in Haverhill.

A spokeswoman for the borough council said: “The council has a legal duty to record and report accidents and ill health at work so that the enforcing authorities can investigate serious accidents and identify where and how risks arise.

“Although not a legal duty, it is good practice to record non-reportable ‘near-miss’ incidents where no-one has actually been affected but where the consequences could have been serious.

“Learning from these incidents applies the old adage that prevention is better than cure.”