21.10.2009

Accident confirmed

An inquest into a fatal boom lift accident in Witney, UK in 2008 has recorded a verdict of accidental death and shed a little more light on how it happened.

Altin Balla, 28, was working on a building site in Witney, Oxfordshire, in August 2008, and was driving a boom lift in the elevated position, when a rise in the ground caused the boom to rise rapidly jamming him against an overhead beam.

The inquest heard that he lost consciousness after hitting the beam which crushed his head and chest. he died the next day in hospital. Balla was working as a net rigger, and was hanging safety nets to the steel work.

He was manoeuvring the lift back and forth in order to line it up with a narrow gap he had to drive through. As he moved the machine backwards, one of the wheels drove up a pile of spoil, raising the basket and trapping him. Click here to see original reports