Crushed to death by falling roll of paper
A FACTORY worker died after he was crushed by a massive roll of paper weighing more than a tonne.
Simon Cowan, aged 33, was working for Avery Dennison Ltd, in Brudenell Drive, Brinklow, cutting down rolls of paper to sell on to printers, when disaster struck at about 10am on Saturday June 25 last year.
An inquest into his death, at the Civic Offices on Tuesday, heard how polystyrene wedges
designed to hold the roll in place had been crushed, allowing the roll to fall.
The accident happened when workmate Terry Hullock transported a new metre wide 1.3 tonne roll to load into the cutting machine. It rolled off the pallet and crushed Mr Cowan, who was facing the machine and reaching up at the time.
Mr Hullock managed to move the roll himself and called for help.
Mr Cowan, of Charles Street, Luton, collapsed but remained conscious and spoke to colleagues while waiting for an
ambulance.
First aider John Dillon was one of the first on the scene.
"He said 'It hurts my chest and my back, and every thing is going black,'" he said.
The recovery position was too painful so Mr Dillon sat down and held Mr Cowan between his legs, with his head resting on his chest.
"I asked if he was okay and he said 'Yes I feel fine now, I can see and I can breath'."
Mr Cowan was taken to Milton Keynes Hospital but he died at about 1pm.
Dr VJ Desai, who carried out the postmortem, gave the cause of death as intra-abdominal haemorrhaging, caused by a rupture of the liver.
The jury of five men and five women heard the roll had come in from the company's plant in Luxembourg on its side – they usually come upright, like a column, and are put on their side at the Brinklow site.
The wedges are used to move them around the factory and are deemed strong enough, but Kelly Messer, a company manager, said the wedges must have been damaged in transport.
"They had packaged that roll and sent it to us like that, it was unusual."
Mrs Messer said the procedure had been changed in the factory and any banding around a roll is only
removed when it is secured in the cutting machines.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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