HAVE I HAD A HEART ATTACK?
Hearing told the driver had no idea what had happened
THE driver of a runaway bin lorry that killed six people asked a nurse if he had suffered a heart attack as he sat in the crash wreckage, a fatal accident inquiry has heard.
Lauren Mykoliw was off duty and happened to be at the Christmas market in Glasgow’s George Square when she helped out in the aftermath of the crash on December 22, 2014.
The 28-year- old told the inquiry she treated the 58-year- old driver, Harry Clarke, moments after his lorry crashed into the Millennium Hotel beside Queen Street Station.
She found him ‘conscious and upright’ in the driver’s seat with his seatbelt still on. When she asked him if he was OK, he could not remember what happened but insisted he had not blacked out.
Miss Mykoliw told the inquiry at Glasgow Sheriff Court: ‘I asked if he felt unwell before the crash and had blacked out. He answered “No”. He said he remembered sitting at the traffic lights, then woke up where he was. He was pale and looked like he had had a shock. He asked me if he’d had a heart attack.’
The inquiry also heard from a paramedic who was one of the first people on the scene and checked Mr Clarke over, but found no signs of a heart attack.
Six people died and ten others were injured when the lorry ploughed into shoppers on a crowded pavement in Queen Street.
The victims included three members of the same family, Jack Sweeney, 68, his wife Lorraine, 69, and their 18-year-old granddaughter Erin McQuade, all from Dumbarton, along with Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, Jacqueline Morton, 51, and 29-year- old Stephenie Tait, both from Glasgow.
The Crown Office has already decided there will be no criminal prosecutions over the crash, with senior lawyers deeming it a ‘ tragic accident’. The court has heard the cause of death for all six victims was ‘multiple injuries due to a road traffic collision’.
Miss Mykoliw told the hearing she was at George Square with her partner and others, including small children, when she heard a ‘loud bang’. At first, she thought something had happened to the Ferris wheel in the square, before she realised that the bin lorry had crashed.
She went to help, climbing into the cab through the passenger side to speak to Mr Clarke. She said: ‘ He was in an upright position, sitting in his chair with his seatbelt fastened.’
She told Solicitor General Lesley Thomson, QC, for the Crown, that she asked him if he felt unwell or could remember what had happened, adding: ‘He asked me if he’d had a heart attack.’
Miss Mykoliw said the driver had no symptoms of feeling dizzy and said he remembered ‘sitting at the traffic lights’ then waking up where he was. She said he was ‘pale, like he had had a shock’ and ‘a little bit sweaty’.
She said she saw three beer bottles in the cab and asked the driver if he had been drinking, which he denied.
The nurse said she asked him if he had blacked out, but Mr Clarke ‘kept repeating himself’ that he had not blacked out, but did not remember what had happened.
Miss Mykoliw said she asked him
when he started his shift and who he lived with, to keep his mind from the incident, until emergency services arrived. She loosened his shirt when he started to hyperventilate.
Part of a statement Miss Mykoliw gave to police was read to the court in which she told officers Mr Clarke said he ‘felt dizzy and clammy’. Mrs Thomson put it to her that the point about feeling dizzy contradicted her earlier evidence and she confirmed her police statement was likely to be correct.
During cross-examination by Dorothy Bain, QC, representing Mrs Morton’s family, another statement by Miss Mykilow was read out, saying: ‘I asked the driver what had happened. He told me he didn’t know. I asked him if he had blacked out or passed out. Again he said, “I don’t know what happened”.
‘He then said, “I didn’t black out. I don’t know what happened. I feel warm and clammy, The last thing I remember is sitting at the lights.’
Later, paramedic Ronald Hewitson told the inquiry he arrived minutes after the crash and found Mr Clarke out of his cab and lying on the ground.
He examined Mr Clarke, who ‘ seemed confused, slightly pale’, and carried out an ECG test. He said the driver’s blood pressure, blood sugar, pulse and oxygen saturation were all within normal levels.
Mr Hewitson added: ‘ As he was talking, he was alert. His colour was slightly pale, so I wasn’t sure if that was down to shock or something happening inside his body I couldn’t see.’
He said Mr Clarke said the last thing he could remember ‘was just somebody shaking him’. He added: ‘That was after the vehicle had stopped at the Millennium Hotel. Prior to that he had no recollection, but he knew he was at work before the incident.’
Mr Hewitson said Mr Clarke s ai d he had no medical problems, although was taking medication for gout.
Miss Bain asked him: ‘The test you did revealed there was no symptoms consistent with having a heart attack?’ He replied: ‘Yes, not at that time.’
Mr Hewitson confirmed he had explained the outcome to Mr Clarke, telling him hospital blood tests would give a ‘definitive’ answer.
The inquiry also heard from depot manager Robert Soutar, who said there was no training for lorry passengers on what to do if a driver becomes unwell.
‘They would just do as anyone would and call for assistance,’ he said, adding that crew member Matthew Telford contacted a supervisor immediately after the crash.
The inquiry, before Sheriff John Beckett, QC, continues.
‘Confused and slightly pale’