“This incident underscores the importance of using appropriate, purpose-designed equipment, following manufacturer instructions, and ensuring vehicles are adequately supported before any person positions themselves underneath,” the coroner wrote.
According to the findings, around 4pm on September 25, Patel, of Auckland, borrowed his neighbour’s jack and tools to change the car’s oil.
Coroner Ian Telford has warned of the dangers of trolley jacks.
The neighbour gave him advice on how to use the jack before he left.
Later that evening, Patel was unable to be contacted, so a close friend went to his home. He found Patel crushed under the car.
After jacking the car up, he raised the alarm and began CPR on Patel until ambulance staff arrived and took over.
However, Patel was soon declared dead at the scene.
Police attended and found the trolley jack had been positioned beneath the front bumper of the vehicle.
According to the findings, photos showed the bumper had buckled under the weight of the car, causing the vehicle to become unstable and fall on to Patel.
A post-mortem examination ruled Patel’s cause of death was blunt-force injuries to the head and torso and the coroner found his death was accidental. A toxicology report found he had no drugs or alcohol in his system at the time.
“Trolley jacks are designed for lifting vehicles only at manufacturer-specified jacking points and are not intended to support a vehicle’s weight without additional, stable supports,” Coroner Telford said.
“Incorrect placement or reliance on a jack alone may result in instability and sudden collapse, as occurred in this tragic case.
“The Motor Industry Training Organisation advises that vehicles must be supported by properly rated stands before any work is undertaken beneath them and that people should never work under a vehicle that is supported only by a jack.”
Patel’s mum, Sunita Patel, said her son was a “bubbly, cheerful, good boy”, who loved cars, especially the brand Honda.
“He used to work on cars, his own and his friends’, like any small fixes. He was very confident in what he was doing,” she told NZME.
Kishan Patel loved his family and friends.
Patel was preparing for a car race in Fielding on the day of his death, she said.
Just a few days beforehand he had taken his car to a mechanic, who gave him a list of work that needed to be done for it to obtain a Warrant of Fitness.
“He would go to work at McDonald’s Greenlane where he worked part-time Sunday and Monday and picked up many other shifts.
“He would come back from his shift late, have dinner, sleep and wake up early to finish what was required on his car. Everything was completed apart from an oil change.”
She said he did the oil change on gravel.
“I was still at work and never ever thought anything like this will ever happen. It has left me grieving for life.”
She called for mechanical work to be free for under-18s.
“Like oil change, tyres. Just the basic necessities that a mechanic can fix without putting the pressure on young kids.
“There will be kids out there like Kishan who will get under the car and a tragic accident like this should never happen. Kids 16, 17, 18, 19 are innocent and unaware of these kind of accidents with cars.
“If everything was completed at the mechanics, Kishan would not have gone under the car and this event wouldn’t have taken place.”
New Zealand currently has no statistics on fatalities involving car jacks and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said it was not running any safety campaigns about the products.
In Australia, an awareness campaign was run by Consumer and Business Services and the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service to educate people on DIY car jack deaths.
Statistics from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission show that, on average in Australia, 160 injuries are associated with jacks each year, with an average of five fatalities per year.
Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.