Lorry blast killed driver as he slept in cab at depot

ALORRY driver who decided to sleep in the cab of his newly serviced truck because local roads were so busy with Cheltenham Gold Cup Festival traffic was killed when it caught fire and exploded as a result of him inexplicably turning on the engine, an inquest heard.

Martin Walsh, 49, of Colne Avenue, Cheltenham, who had drunk eight pints of beer in a nearby bar before getting into his cab to sleep, died from inhaling the effects of combustion, the Gloucester inquest was told.

Examination of the Volvo vehicle had found no faults which could have caused the tragedy, said area Gloucestershire Coroner Roland Wooderson.

“It seems to me that this is just a tragic, awful accident, isn’t it?” the coroner said to members of Mr Walsh’s family attending the inquest.

The inquest heard that on March 15 last year - the second day of the fourday Gold Cup Festival - Mr Walsh, who worked for the William Gilder haulage firm, collected his truck from the repair depot after its six-week service.

He phoned his partner, Anna, and told her he was going to sleep in his cab at his employers’ depot at Teddington Hands, near Tewkesbury, because of the race traffic on the roads.

A police report to the inquest said that at 7pm Mr Walsh went to the Longhorn Bar and Grill nearby and CCTV showed that he consumed eight pints there before leaving at 12.23am. When he left he appeared unsteady on his feet. A post-mortem examination showed that he had in his blood more than three times the legal limit of alcohol for a driver.

Reading from the police report, the coroner said: “A colleague noted that when Mr Walsh got into his cab he turned the engine on. The colleague thought Martin would be in trouble with the management in the morning for wasting diesel.

“CCTV shows that at 1.19am there was smoke under the vehicle on the driver’s side behind the cab. At 1.25am a security officer at the site appeared and banged on the window of the cab.

“At 1.26am flames exploded from the driver’s side of the cab.”

The coroner said that earlier the vehicle’s own inbuilt camera had recorded background noise of the engine running at 12.29am. That was regarded as unusual because the engine is not required to be running for the heating in the cab to work.

A police scenes of crime officer attended the scene and fire damage was found around the hydraulic hosing and high drive of the unit. A police investigation report concluded: “In the cab, he turned the ignition on for no known reason and he then fell asleep. At some point between 12.29am and 1.16am the PTO (power take off ) switch was engaged and due to the hydraulic fluid not having an outlet the pressure built up under the cab, the pipe ruptured and fluid caught fire.

“Mr Walsh appears not to have regained consciousness even when the system was making a loud noise. This would have been due to alcohol intoxication and then to carbon monoxide poisoning.”

The report said nothing was found to suggest that the service the vehicle had just undergone caused the incident.

The coroner said “I think there was a concern that something may have been done in servicing it that may have contributed to what happened but there was nothing. This was a tragic accident.”