Pensioner, 77, dies after faulty door smashes into him at GP surgery
A FRAIL pensioner died after breaking his hip in four places as he was hit by a faulty automatic door at a doctor’s surgery, an inquest heard.
Terry Birks screamed as he ‘went over like a tree’ and hit his head on a wall, his wife Susan said.
Mr Birks, 77, who had Alzheimer’s disease, died two and a half weeks later in hospital.
He had been picking up a prescription with his wife when he was knocked over in April last year.
She had walked through the practice’s second set of glass doors, which are designed to open when someone breaks an infra-red beam.
The door was shutting as Mr Birks followed her inside six seconds later, leaning heavily on his walking stick, CCTV footage showed.
The door should have re-opened to let him through but an emergency sensor was in the wrong place, meaning the retired HGV driver was in a blind spot.
He was then knocked off his feet by the edge of the door at the Darnall Health Centre in Sheffield. His stick flew out of his hand and he was sent sprawling as his wife watched.
The door continued to close, showing it had totally failed to detect Mr Birks, as his wife of 28 years doubled back to help.
Mrs Birks, 66, from Sheffield, said: ‘I had just got into the room and I turned around and he was screaming. I saw him go on to his right-hand side and he banged his head on the wall.
‘The door was closing. It hit him on his left shoulder and he went over like a tree.’ Paramedics were called to the health centre after staff heard the great grandfather screaming in pain.
After Mr Birks died in May last year, the infra- red beam was moved to the correct position, as recommended by the manufactur- ers, and the door speed was slowed. Sheffield coroner’s court was told there was no record of the door being serviced since it was installed four years ago.
Surgery managers had not taken up the offer of a servicing contract from the door firm. They instead called out engineers only when the doors were broken, the inquest heard.
Pharmacy dispenser Kelly Lynch testified that she ‘recalled a previous incident’ with the door as she was leaving the building at night.
The inquest was attended by Mrs Birks’s daughter Jackie Clo- ver, her husband Stephen, and daughter Melissa. Health and safety expert Andrew Crouch said the father of four might not have been hit if the sensor had been fitted correctly. He added the risks could have been reduced if the doors were being serviced.
As it was, the off-target beam missed Mr Birks’s foot by inches, leaving him invisible.
An inquest jury returned a narrative verdict and blame was not attributed to any individuals. Jurors found no factors that ‘significantly contributed’ to Mr Birks’s death.
Mrs Clover, 47, said: ‘We are very disappointed with the conclusion and very upset. We just don’t want this to happen to anyone else.
‘My dad went through absolute hell. For two and a half weeks, he suffered. We feel as a family it could have been avoided. He could have been spared all that pain and torment.’
But the jury, in a series of questions put to them by the coroner, ruled that the surgery’s decision not to get the doors inspected or tested did not ‘contribute significantly’ to the death. Darnall Health Centre did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Went through absolute hell’