Lorry driver error proved to be fatal
CRUSHED AGAINST ANOTHER VEHICLE AFTER FORGETTING TO PUT HANDBRAKE ON, INQUEST TOLD
A LORRY driver was crushed to death after forgetting to turn on the handbrake, an inquest heard.
Gordon Moxon, 65, was fatally injured when his HGV rolled forward and pinned him against another lorry at Dove Valley Park, Foston.
He was found seconds later by another lorry driver, who freed him and administered first aid, but paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
A post-mortem examination revealed multiple injuries, including fractured ribs, a fractured spine and a lacerated liver.
The inquest, held at Derby Coroner’s Court on Monday, heard that Mr Moxon had spent most of his adult life driving HGVS.
He had been due to drive an articulated lorry carrying a pre-fabricated building as part of a convoy of vehicles on September 15 last year.
CCTV and dashcam footage showed that when he was about to set off Mr Moxon realised he could not move as the handbrake on the trailer unit of the vehicle was still on.
The hearing was told he left the cab of his vehicle, which already had the engine turned on and its handbrake off, to release the trailer.
Reading evidence from the police investigation, Sabyta Kaushal, assistant coroner for Derby and Derbyshire, said Mr Moxon had either not heard, or had ignored, an automated warning telling him the handbrake had been left off when he left the vehicle. She said after releasing the handbrake for the trailer, he had walked around the front of the cab unaware it was moving.
She said: “He appears not to have noticed that vehicle had begun to move.
“He did not appear to be looking towards the vehicle at any point and did not increase his speed at any point.
“It’s in the last moments that he can be heard verbalising his realisation the vehicle is moving. It’s only at the last moments he becomes aware. At that moment it was sadly too late to escape and he was crushed in between the two vehicles.”
She added no faults had been found with the vehicle and that had the handbrake for the cab been turned on, it would have been enough to stop the vehicle and the trailer from moving forward.
Miss Kaushal recorded a conclusion of accidental death.