Worker, 17, ‘was killed as he tumbled in machine’
A TEENAGER who died after his neck was broken may have been hurt after ‘tumbling’ inside the revolving drum of a machine, a court heard yesterday.
Michael McLean, 17, was on the final day of his summer job when he was found unconscious and bleeding from his ears.
Dean Reynolds, 23, denies culpable homicide.
Michael was found on the floor of a paint shed which contained an industrial spooling machine used to raise and lower subsea cables from oil platforms and boats.
The shed was at the premises of industrial cleaning firm Denholm MacNamee in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, where the teenager’s father also worked.
Michael was given CPR before being taken to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where he died six days after the tragedy on August 14.
Yesterday, the High Court in Aberdeen heard that a postmortem had found Michael had suffered a broken vertebrae in his neck, which caused a tear in his spinal cord. This led to cardiac arrest and his brain was starved of oxygen.
Forensic pathologist Dr Matthew Lyall told the sixth day of the trial that Michael’s broken neck could have been caused by a single blow to the head during a tumble in the machine.
This could explain his other injuries, including a broken jaw.
Dr Lyall said: ‘He had a severe injury that could have produced immediate cardiac arrest and even if it didn’t, I would expect it to produce immediate paralysis of all four limbs.
‘Even if you were on level ground I would expect someone sustaining that sort of injury to collapse.
‘If you combine that with a moving spool you would find it extremely difficult to maintain balance.’
Addressing Dr Lyall, advocate depute Richard Goddard asked said: ‘I put this scenario to you – this machine was being operated by another person while Michael McLean was inside it, causing the drum to revolve, perhaps only for a few seconds and then being switched off because he is not fit to do it by then.
‘That’s because he had either become entrapped or had tumbled in that drum.
‘Could that account for his broken neck in conjunction with the injury to both sides of his body, his broken jaw and the injuries to his chest?’
Dr Lyall replied: ‘I think that sequence of events sounds plausible.’
Mr Goddard: ‘Does the scenario I’ve put to you in combination account for the findings in this young man’s case?’ Dr Lyall: ‘I think it does, yes.’ Iain Duguid, QC, defending, asked: ‘Are you not amazed that if he has been tumbling in a drum that he doesn’t have more traumatic head injuries?’ Dr Lyall replied: ‘It just depends how he may have fallen. I probably would most of the time expect to have more impacts to the head.
‘He doesn’t have a traumatic head injury.’
Detective Constable Grant Rigg later told the trial that he had viewed CCTV footage from the Denholm MacNamee yard.
He said it showed the front of the paint shed, known as a tent, where Michael was injured.
He said that at the time of the incident, only two people were within the shed.
Mr Goddard asked: ‘There were only two people in the tent at that time, the now deceased Michael McLean and Dean Reynolds?’ DC Rigg replied: ‘Yes.’ Reynolds, 23, of Keith, Aberdeenshire, denies culpable homicide and an alternative charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
He further denies a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by discarding two pairs of work boots belonging to him to avoid their examination and analysis.
The trial, before judge Lord Beckett and a jury of six men and nine women, continues.
‘No traumatic head injury’