Workers weren't given manual for platform which collapsed, killing dad and his apprentice son, inquest told
Builders working on a city centre construction project had not been provided with an operating manual for a climber platform which later collapsed, claiming the lives of a dad and son.
David Bottomley, 53, and his son Clayton, 17, were working on the Unity Building, on the corner of Chapel Street and Rumford Place, when the platform they were standing on suddenly dropped 14 storeys at 3.30pm on May 19, 2021.
David, from West Yorkshire, was pronounced dead at the scene. Clayton was taken to Aintree Hospital in a critical condition, where he tragically died of his injuries four days later.
An inquest investigation into the pair's deaths began on Monday, with the last pieces of evidence being put before the jury today, September 19.
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Unity Building workmen told Merseyside Police "the brakes had failed" on the dad and son's climber platform, causing it to fall. A later inspection by the Health and Safety Executive found the shafts had failed on the climber platform due to fatigue to the operating mechanism.
The court previously heard there had been "four or five" identical mast climber lifts on the Unity Building site, all operated with three buttons - up, down and emergency stop. The masts were manufactured by a Chinese company trading under the name TDT, and had been installed by Adastra Access, which supplied the equipment, reports The Echo.
Paul Shah, a project manager for site operators Laing O’Rourke, said the platforms had been in use for at least five years at the time of the fatal incident, and were checked every day. He said: "The daily check is mainly a visual, overall look at the machine. The one check we did was the function [brake] check, up and down, and the emergency release." He added: "We check it every day. We wouldn't step foot in a machine knowing we couldn't take it down manually."
However, there was supposed to be another daily brake test which staff had not been made aware of. A TDT manual setting out instructions for testing the machine was produced before the court. Mr Shah said: "I have never seen that manual before."
It was heard that workers had not received an instruction manual from Adastra Access until May 2022, when the company made safety-improving alterations to the climber platforms and thus were required to produce their own manual.
The inquest further heard that a HSE investigation of the Unity Building found thermal settings on the mast climber had been turned up too high, and this same issue was identified in other machines at a separate Adastra Access site. But HSE inspector Christine McGlynn said: "It was not particularly flagged up as being the main cause of the incident and the falling of the machine. The investigation mainly focused on the design and maintenance of the machine."
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