‘Accidental death’ verdict on Holmfirth man crushed by baler

Jul 3 2009 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

‘Accidental death’ verdict on Holmfirth man crushed by baler

WOOL firm bosses were ordered to tighten safety measures after a member of staff was crushed to death by a machine, an inquest heard.

The Health and Safety Executive issued an improvement notice to Westwood Yarns in Holmfirth following the tragic death of Gary Lee on January 3 last year.

Mr Lee, 40, suffered multiple injuries including a broken spine, when he was crushed by a wool baling machine as he cleaned it.

He had been with the Dunford Road company for 22 years.

The jury in the Bradford inquest heard that the machine had not been turned off at the mains before Mr Lee, also of Dunford Road, climbed into the compression chamber.

He accidentally activated the baler when he triggered an electrical sensor and died almost immediately.

HSE inspector Kirsty Townend told the inquest yesterday that, following the incident, she had told Westwood Yarns to improve training procedures.

She said: “There were some discrepancies across the board and different employees were using different systems or weren’t following the systems the company had in place and that needed to be addressed.”

She said the company had complied with all her recommendations.

Anthony Hoyland, a mechanical engineer for the HSE at the time, told the jury a switch on the baler was broken.

It would probably have automatically stopped the machine from operating if it had been working.