Man was crushed to death by 40 tonnes of cheese after racks failed
A YOUNG mother described how she ‘lost my best friend, my entire world’ in a statement to an inquest into the death of her 32-year-old husband.
Robert Ceremuga died after he was crushed beneath 40 tonnes of cheese when a shelf rack collapsed at the warehouse where he worked in Finglas, in Dublin.
The young father suffered catastrophic injuries in the accident on November 28, 2013 at VP Foods, Jamestown Business Park, Dublin 11. Up to 80 tonnes of cheese was stored in pallets stacked in six bays on shelf racks measuring 15m long, the inquest heard.
A forklift driver was working in the storeroom and had removed between 30 and 40 pallets of cheese from the lower shelves on the morning of November 28. The driver had been working for the company for only a number of weeks and had no formal forklift training, Health and Safety Inspector Frank Kerins said.
The driver was sitting in the forklift when Mr Ceremuga entered the cold store with a clipboard and asked if he had taken his break.
It’s not clear if the forklift struck the shelf or if the racks buckled under the weight of the pallets on the higher shelves, Mr Kerins said. ‘The whole thing started to sway and the pallets started coming down... it was all top heavy, once it buckled, it was not able to take the weight. Forty pallets came down. The whole room was a mangled mess of pallets,’ Mr Kerins said. The forklift driver jumped out of the cab and ran from the room but Mr Cerebuga had no time to react, the court heard.
Garda Keith McGrath said the deceased was found slumped against a wall in the store room.
The cause of death was crush injuries to the head and chest according to a report by State Pathologist Marie Cassidy.
The jury returned a verdict of industrial accident and recommended that forklift training be provided to all operators and that all racking systems should be emptied before any adjustments are made to them.
Mr Ceremuga’s daughter was four months old when he died, his widow Maria said in a statement through her solicitor Kieran Johnston. She added: ‘She was his pride and joy. I lost my best friend and my entire world.’