Crane death was ‘tragic accident’, rules sheriff

THE death of a man who was killed when the jib of an 18-ton crane fell on him as he worked on the Queensferry Crossing was a ‘tragic accident’, a sheriff has ruled.

John Cousin’s death was caused after he removed a pin, causing the machinery to fall and hit him on the head and body in April 2016.

A fatal accident inquiry in December heard that Mr Cousin, 62, of Northumberland, sustained ‘unsurvivable injuries’ after the jib of the crane fell on him while Stewart Clark, a fitter for the machine’s owner, was preparing to replace a leaking hydraulic hose.

In his written determination, Sheriff William Gilchrist said that with better training, Mr Clark might have used a ‘more appropriate’ method of replacing the hose which did not involve touching the jib.

But he said: ‘The only conclusion that I can reach is that the reason the fly jib struck the deceased was because he was positioned underneath it at a point near the centre of the fly jib where he was engaged in removing the central pivot pin.

‘This was a tragic accident.’