The wounded staggered from the factory ruins, dumbstruck and covered in a ghostly grey dust
That was the harrowing scene seconds after a gas blast at a Glasgow plastics firm left nine dead and 40 injured. 20 years on, the minute by shattering minute story of the devastation – and the epic acts of bravery that followed
TWENTY years ago today, a huge gas explosion ripped through a plastics factory in Glasgow leaving nine dead and more than 40 injured. It would make the name Stockline synonymous with one of Scotland’s worst industrial disasters which, at its peak, involved more than 200 firefighters, 100 police officers and 16 ambulance crews and drew international headlines.
A poorly maintained gas pipe turned an ageing brick building into a ticking time bomb and for many of those who went to work that Tuesday morning in 2004, their lives would be irrevocably altered.
Yet, it was also a day when the very best of humanity shone through in acts of simple kindness and heroic bravery. Here, we present in gripping detail, a minuteby-minute account of the tragedy.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004, 8am
Bright sunshine splits the sky above Maryhill as a fivestrong team start their shift in the coating shop at Stockline Plastics, in Grovepark Place.
Located on the ground floor of the four-storey former Victorian weaving mill, its two gas-fired and two electric-powered ovens melt plastic coatings on to fixtures, fittings and casings for everything from the meat trade to hospitals.
As the morning wears on, one worker, Matthew Wylie, finds himself tucked away in a back corner, loading wheelchair components into the rotary oven.
9am
Personnel manager Linda Kinnon and the rest of the 55 sales and admin staff working that day for Stockline and its two sister companies – ICL Tech and ICL Plastics – arrive at their desks in the upper floors at Grovepark Mills, a brick building dating back to 1857.
Office worker Ann Trench, 34, of Colston, Glasgow, is due to leave the company in three days’ time, while 27-year-old receptionist Tracey McErlane, from Possilpark, has recently returned from maternity leave and is looking forward to catching up with close friend Annette Doyle, 34, of Lambhill, who works in sales.
The firm’s founder and chairman Campbell Downie is working from his home near Milngavie, north of Glasgow. His wife, Lorna, is also there, having taken a day off from her role as a personnel director to plan celebrations for her husband’s 69th birthday the next day. Their son, Nick, has headed into the office where he works as technical manager.
11.50am
Across north Glasgow, the community basks in the UK’s warmest weather as temperatures soar into the 20s. On the tenth floor of the Cedar Court flats above Maryhill Road, George McMurray is making a cup of tea. In the La France salon nearby, Mary Morrow cuts hair and thinks about lunch. Neither can know that, minutes later, both will be running to help at a scene of unimaginable devastation.
11.55am
Senior managers are gathering for a meeting in Stockline’s secondfloor conference room chaired by Stewart McColl.
The 60-year-old chief executive is going to announce one of the biggest contracts in the company’s 43-year history, secured on a recent trip to the US.
Head of internal affairs Peter Ferguson, 52, Ms Doyle and 49-year-old finance director Margaret Brownlie are there, along with Mr McColl’s daughter, Sheena, 31, a sales leader in the same offices where she used to do her homework as a schoolgirl while waiting for a lift home.
Meanwhile, builder Kenneth Murray, 45, is heading to the basement to pick up some tools to carry out repairs.
He is unaware that a corroded pipe has caused a huge leak of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in the basement and that a stray spark from a light switch or cigarette lighter will be enough to ignite it with deadly consequences.
Midday
As the sales meeting gets under way, Mr Murray enters the basement. The coating shop’s radio is buzzing to the sound of Clyde 1, but as the music switches to adverts, there is an almighty bang and everything goes black.
All four floors collapse instantly leaving a huge dust cloud where the plastics factory once stood.
Mr Wylie, then 20, crouches in a ground floor doorway as 5,000 tons of bricks, timber and masonry crashes down about him.
The roof has buckled sideways and one side of the elderly building has simply disintegrated.
Through the rubble, he glimpses daylight – a hole in the wall with debris piled up in a makeshift staircase and a miraculous chance to escape.
He is among the lucky ones. Yards away, Sheena McColl lies trapped, having fallen two storeys. ‘You’ve got to get someone to get me out,’ she screams at him. Clambering out, he sees an elderly woman with one leg crushed and covered in blood.
She is screaming in pain. Another woman lies dead. Looking down from his flat, Mr McMurray says: ‘It looked like the roof had been lifted off and put back on again but with everything around it gone.’
12.02pm
Within 65 seconds of the explosion, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) control centre is receiving numerous 999 calls.
The order goes out: ‘Major incident, make pumps 20.’ Serious call-outs usually involve no more than five appliances.
As the walking wounded stagger from the ruins, dumbstruck and covered in ghostly grey dust, horrified locals rush to help with no thought for their safety, including medical staff from Woodside Health Centre, in Barr Street.
Minutes after the ‘absolutely colossal’ blast shakes her salon windows, Ms Morrow and others are pushing trolleys loaded with water and food to the scene.
Dental technician Gerry McGuinness searches for those trapped under the rubble: ‘We couldn’t see them but they were screaming at us to help them,’ he says. ‘We were trying to move the bricks when a man came and told us to stop because it may be unsafe, then the police arrived.’
12.15pm
Amid a wail of sirens, the first wave of emergency services swamp the scene.
Police throw up a huge security cordon and Maryhill Community Central Halls, round the corner on Maryhill Road, opens as a refuge for distraught Stockline families waiting for news. ‘It was as if the world stood still,’ manager Gary Gentles recalls.
12.25pm
SFRS assistant divisional officer Lewis Ramsay is exercising in a fire station gym when his pager goes off. He heads straight to the scene and parks in a commandeered supermarket car park where a young policeman warns him a scene of ‘carnage’ awaits.
‘All I could see was a couple of bricks and some damage to cars. Nothing prepared me for it.
‘I had been exposed to tragedies and loss of life but not on this scale,’ Mr Ramsay recalls.
‘Once I began work, I did not stop until three o’clock the following morning.’ It sets a pattern for the days to come.
1pm
Glasgow hospitals’ major incident plan, honed after 9/11, swings into action. Three A&E consultants, one trainee, three nursing staff and a consultant anaesthetist are on scene and a colour-coded triage system is implemented: red for immediate treatment, yellow for as soon as possible and green for delay if necessary.
They are joined by specialists in recovering victims from cramped conditions from Fife’s Mines Rescue Service (MRS) and disaster zone experts from Grangemouth-based International Rescue Corps (IRC).
Firefighters from six UK forces, from Grampian to Leicestershire, will eventually deploy to Stockline along with police sniffer dogs.
1.30pm
Strathclyde’s Firemaster Brian Sweeney, who becomes the
public face of the rescue effort, buckles his white helmet into place and offers a simple message: there is still hope, and there is work to do.
Firefighters use CO2 sensors to locate casualties but moving the rubble along human chains is taking too long.
The MrS team cuts 3ft by 2ft tunnels and shores them up with any wood they find to hand, allowing them to burrow down and reach survivors trapped in pockets of air more quickly.
1.45pm
Tammy Nelson, 18, clings precariously to a chair as rescuers painstakingly remove debris before pulling the teenage secretary to safety.
She is bleeding badly from a head wound and a fireman called Steve holds on to her arm to stop her falling further: ‘He was talking to me, joking and flirting with me to keep me from blacking out,’ she says.
‘He said, “i bet you didn’t think you would end up in a fireman’s arms today”.’
3pm
Three hours after the building collapse, another survivor – a man is lifted out alive.
To avoid disturbing the rubble, the operation has been scaled back to six small teams focusing on four pockets where survivors are known to be trapped.
Occasionally they call for silence as they listen for any scratching or tapping sounds or mobile phones ringing.
The tension is unbearable, conditions remain treacherous. Mr ramsay said: ‘we were trained and risk-aware but there were moments when we feared for our lives. You could not, however, stop working. Lives depended on it.’
4.30pm
Edinburgh nurse derek Jolly, in blue irC overalls, crawls past rubble and reams of a4 paper and scattered files into a tiny void directly below a female casualty.
His job is to stop her falling further while rescuers above work to free her. as his hour-long stint ends, she is lifted out.
it is his first experience of working in a collapsed building with the ever-present threat of being crushed himself.
‘i got stuck at one stage – my helmet wouldn’t fit through.
‘i needed a push to get me through. it was all twisted metal which really restricted my movement,’ he says matter of factly.
4.59pm
a surge of hope as Nick downie, 39, is freed by rescuers who cut through the roof and metal girders to clear his trapped legs.
His will eventually return to work after many months of operations and rehabilitation.
Efforts continue into the evening under the glare of arc lights and the world’s media while locals maintain a quiet vigil beyond the cordon.
9pm
Entombed under 20ft of wreckage and badly injured, Linda Kinnon lies beside her colleague Stewart McColl, watching him slowly succumb to his injuries: ‘all i could do was comfort him and tell him help was on the way. it would be too late for Stewart.’
She has suffered life-changing crush injuries, and a long shard of timber would later be surgically removed from her lower back.
Like others, her physical and mental recovery will take years.
as she waits to be extricated, and despite agonising pain, the personnel officer helps save rescuers valuable time by confirming who was at work and who was not.
‘it just seemed like common sense to me,’ she said. ‘They were searching for one chap who i knew was at the dentist.’
what none of them yet know is that Ms Kinnon will be the last survivor pulled clear from the wreckage.
Carnage: Emergency crews try to find survivors with the desperate search taking its toll on those involved, left
Wednesday, May 12, 2004, 5.30am
Faint knocking offers false hope of more survivors as heavy lifting equipment, including an 80ft crane, is brought in to stabilise the site.
as the sun rises, police begin the grim task of breaking the shattering news to victims’ families.
Margaret Brownlie, of Strathaven, Lanarkshire, is told the body of her daughter, also Margaret, has been found.
as well as losing her father, Sheena McColl is in hospital recovering from a double leg amputation.
The family of Ms McErlane, 27, must now care for her beloved eight-month-old son ryan.
The families of Ms Trench and Ms doyle, both 34, are among those to receive police visits,
along with the fiancée of storeman Thomas McAulay, a 41-yearold father of two, of Mount Florida, Glasgow, who had announced his engagement just a month before the tragedy.
Mr Ferguson, 52, of Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, has left behind an 18-year-old daughter.
11am
After speaking to survivors at the city’s Western Infirmary, a sombre Jack McConnell visits the scene, with the First Minister praising rescue efforts and pledging ‘a full and thorough investigation’.
Prime Minister Tony Blair sends his condolences.
A gaunt-looking Mr Downie will later stand outside his home on his 69th birthday as his daughter, Joanna, reads a statement expressing condolences and praising rescuers and the community for rallying round ‘at this dark time’.
1pm
As the day wears on, shops, supermarkets and takeaways bring food for the hot and dusty rescue workers.
A Scottish Water lorry arrives loaded with bottled water. Amid the unseasonably warm weather of the first two days of the rescue, 8,000 litres are delivered to hydrate hundreds of police, fire and rescue staff now on site.
Thursday, May 13, 2004, 1am
The body of the eighth victim, 45-year-old Mr Murray, of Paisley, is recovered from the building’s basement area.
His injuries are later shown to be consistent with his having been at the point of the explosion. Blood samples would show he had inhaled propane gas before the blast.
Exhausted rescuers continue searching for the final person they knew to be trapped, sales executive Timmy Smith.
Firemaster Sweeney emotionally tells reporters how Mr Smith’s wife Louise begged him not to give up the search.
Just days earlier, the couple celebrated the christening of their first child.
Friday, May 14, 2004, 11.25am
The body of 31-year-old Mr Smith becomes the ninth and last to be found in the rubble of the Stockline plastics factory. At 11.45am, he is carried gently from the ruins – almost exactly 72 hours after the fatal blast occurred.
By Friday afternoon, 17 people remain in hospital, including nine with serious crushing injuries.
4.10pm
Fire crews and rescue workers are stood down and the site is handed over to police investigators and forensics teams.
After four exhausting days, Assistant Firemaster Andrew Shuttleworth’s voice cracks with nervous exhaustion as he tells the media: ‘The incident is closed and we have now withdrawn all our personnel from there.
‘There is no fire. There are no other persons reported missing. We will obviously be working with police to find out what has happened but our main job is done.’
AFTERMATH
Two months after the disaster, a memorial service is held at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall, while a fund is set up to help those affected.
In 2007, a garden of remembrance opens on the former factory site and becomes a focus for annual commemorations.
Three years after the explosion, the owners of the factory, ICL Plastics Ltd and ICL Tech Ltd, are found guilty on charges under the 1974 Health and Safety Act and fined £400,000 for failing in their duty of care to their workers.
The High Court in Glasgow hears that LPG pipework installed in 1969 was not properly maintained.
The faulty pipework, which caused the explosion, would have cost only £400 to replace.
Millions of pounds in compensation will be paid to survivors and the families of the victims.
Many will take years to recover from life-changing injuries, some – including Nick Downie and Sheena McColl – will return to work at the company, which is still operated by the Downie family from the same site.
In 2008, a judicial inquiry, chaired by Lord Gill, excoriates the Health and Safety Executive for ‘serious weaknesses’ in its inspection procedures, contributing to ‘a disaster that could have been avoided’.
HSE tightens up inspection procedures in response.
Lord Gill also praises the extraordinary acts of courage and kindness shown by emergency personnel and local residents that day.
It was, he notes, ‘an occasion when ordinary people did extraordinary acts’.