Woman lifted to her death by garage shutters
A SOCIAL worker died of multiple injuries after she grabbed hold of a garage roller shutter that pulled her upwards and crushed her, an inquest heard.
Heidi Chalkley, 40, was heading for a night out in Cambridge with Susan Gilmore when she asked her friend if she had ever held on to the garage doors when the mechanism pulled the shutters up. Ms Gilmore said, “No”, and seconds later she watched her friend die at the entrance to the car park of her block of flats as Ms Chalkley was lifted 3ft off the ground.
In a statement, Ms Gilmore said: “We were walking next to each other and Heidi had gone slightly ahead of me and pressed the button. As it went up Heidi said to me, ‘Have you ever held on to it as it goes up?’ I said ‘No’. She then reached up, held the shutter and it lifted her off the ground.
“I thought she would let go but she started to panic as her hands got caught in the barrier. Everything happened really quickly, in a matter of seconds.”
She said her friend’s legs were hanging down and her body appeared “folded”.
The inquest heard how Ms Gilmore ran upstairs to her flat to dial 999 while James Spitale, a neighbour, tried to save Ms Chalkley’s life by lifting her body up in an attempt to release pressure on her neck, the inquest heard.
In a statement, Mr Spitale said he heard someone on the phone sounding “incredibly distressed”, then saw a woman hanging about 3ft from the ground at the entrance to the car park.
He said there was blood coming from the woman’s mouth, adding: “My immediate thought was to grab her and lift her up. I hoped it would release the pressure on her neck and allow her to breathe.”
When emergency services arrived they told him it was too late, he said.
Ms Chalkley’s cause of death was given as multiple injuries, with fractures to her ribs, spine, arms and jawbone. She had no alcohol or drugs in her system.
The inquest continues.