Lorry driver crushed after forgetting handbrake

A LORRY driver was crushed to death by his own vehicle after forgetting to turn on the handbrake, an inquest has heard.

Gordon Phillip Moxon was fatally injured when the HGV rolled forward and pinned him against another lorry in Park Avenue, in Dove Valley Park, Foston.

An inquest into the 65-year-old’s death heard he was found seconds later by another lorry driver, who freed him and delivered first aid.

However, he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. A post-mortem examination revealed he had suffered multiple injuries including fractured ribs, a fractured spine and a lacerated liver.

The inquest, at Derby Coroners’ Court yesterday, heard Mr Moxon had spent most of his adult life driving HGVs.

It was told Mr Moxon had been due to drive an articulated lorry carrying a pre-fabricated building as part of a convoy in the late afternoon of 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 of the vehicle was still on. 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 into Mr Moxon’s death, Miss Sabyta Kaushal, assistant coroner for Derby and Derbyshire, said he had either not heard, or had ignored, an automated warning telling him the handbrake to his cab 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 the 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 that 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.