A 30-year-old Wicklow man suffered injuries that were \u201cincompatible with life\u201d after he was struck by plant machinery in \u201ctotal darkness\u201d at a Dublin quarry, an inquest has heard.<\/p>\n
Operators at Behan Quarry in Rathcoole were fined hundreds of thousands of euros after Christopher Miley, from Valleymount, Co Wicklow, suffered fatal crush injuries when he was struck by a shovel loader on October 28th, 2021.<\/p>\n
Miley, who had been working at the quarry for Euro Oil, had been delivering diesel for two years at the time of his death, and was described as an \u201cexemplary employee\u201d.<\/p>\n
Evidence from the driver of the shovel loader, Fergal Davidson, was read to an inquest jury at Dublin District Coroner\u2019s Court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Davidson was uncontactable and could not be compelled to attend as he lived outside the Republic.<\/p>\n
He recalled filling lorries with aggregate using the shovel loader after he began work at about 6am on the morning of the incident when he reversed backwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt a bump and realised there had been an accident,\u201d he said. After getting out and going to the rear of the vehicle, all he could see were \u201cfeet\u201d.<\/p>\n
Davidson said he did not see Miley at \u201cany time prior to the accident\u201d, adding that the area was in \u201ctotal darkness\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was wet and visibility was very poor. There was a problem with the light at the back of the shovel [loader] and the windscreen washers weren\u2019t working,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cathal Smyth, another worker at the quarry, recalled hearing Davidson \u201croar\u201d after the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran up and there he was, lying,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cAt this point, I knelt down beside him and started telling him it was going to be all right and started saying the Hail Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miley did not have a pulse and was not breathing when Ed Walsh, a Dublin Fire Brigade paramedic, arrived.<\/p>\n
He described Miley\u2019s injuries as \u201cincompatible with life\u201d, and said it was an \u201cobvious death\u201d. Miley was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 7am.<\/p>\n
A Health and Safety Authority (HSA) investigation resulted in prosecutions against both Shannon Valley Plant Hire, for which Miley was contracted to refuel its vehicles, and L Behan Aggregates and Recycling, the operator of the quarry owned by Larry Behan.<\/p>\n
HSA inspector Manus Tiernan told the inquest the contractor was fined \u20ac600,000, while L Behan Aggregates and Recycling was fined \u20ac50,000 for breaches of health-and-safety legislation.<\/p>\n
He noted the contractor did not have a specific written procedure for refuelling on the site. He added that although it had a general risk assessment for refuelling, it was \u201cnot followed on this occasion\u201d.<\/p>\n
That risk assessment would have seen all machinery and work halted during periods of refuelling. Both companies had also failed to ensure artificial lighting of the site outside of daylight hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf those procedures were in place, this accident would not have happened,\u201d Tiernan said.<\/p>\n
Despite the shovel loader being fitted with sensors and cameras, these did not detect Miley when he was at the rear.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one will know exactly why it didn\u2019t detect him,\u201d Tiernan said, though he theorised Miley could have slipped on the wet and \u201cmucky\u201d ground while retrieving a hose, thereby being at too low an elevation to be detected.<\/p>\n
The inquest jury returned a verdict of death due to an industrial accident, while the cause of death was recorded as traumatic musculoskeletal and multi-organ injuries.<\/p>\n
Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane offered her \u201cdeepest condolences\u201d to the family, saying it was a \u201ctragic loss of a young man\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 30-year-old Wicklow man suffered injuries that were \u201cincompatible with life\u201d after he was struck by plant machinery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43391,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-539945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-health-and-safety-authority","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}