13.05.2004

Coroner calls for better training after platform death

Swindon Coroner Nigel Brookes has said that he will be writing to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) asking for improved safety practices for Plant hire companies, after he recorded a verdict of death by misadventure for a contract cleaner who was crushed between the cage of an aerial platform he was using and a steel beam in late 2002.

The incident occurred in November 2002. Mr. Paul Edwards, 38, a contract cleaner from Bartley Green, Birmingham, was using a Self Propelled aerial work platform to repair fire damage at Fish Brothers garage in Swindon when he inadvertently caused the platform to rise pinning him between the cage and an overhead beam. Colleagues on the ground tried in vain to bring the machine down, by cutting hoses and trying to remove the wheels.

The Inquest heard that Mr Edwards had received no formal training in the use of powered access platforms and was unfamiliar with the particular machine he was using. The familiarization of other workers was also raised as an issue by the coroner. Mr Edwards’s brother, Stephen, 48, said after the inquest, "We're all just gutted really, If we'd have had better training we could have got him down, but we didn't have a clue what to do”.

I t seems that none of those present when the accident occurred knew how to use the machines lower controls or the manual emergency descent feature if they had the outcome might have been different.

Brookes is writing to the HSE asking that plant hire companies insist on seeing proof of training and improve the familiarization instruction at the point of hand over. He also called for better labelling on machines and the introduction of improved safety guards on the levers and buttons. The machine was inspected after the incident and found to comply with all current regulations, It is not known how the controls on this unit were live given that all units are required to have some form of “Dead man” control.

The lift was rented from Cox Plant Hire Ltd, to specialist damage cleaning firm IDM Ltd, Cox plant has already voluntary introduced some of the changes suggested my the coroner regarding operator familiarisation etc.

Neither Cox Plant Hire nor IDM Ltd, part of Merryhill Envirotech Ltd, commented on the outcome of the inquest. A spokesman for the HSE said they were considering further legal action