A construction worker fell to his death from a cherry picker while building a milking parlour, an inquest has heard — and his widow was not informed until she got to the site in an "appalling" miscommunication.
Peter Chilcott, 62, died on November 4, 2021, following the tragic accident at Higher Trestrayle Farm, near Probus, Cornwall.
Opening the inquest, senior coroner for Cornwall Andrew Cox described how Mr Chilcott had run his own business specialising in the construction of agricultural buildings for years.
Mr Cox said that Higher Trestrayle Farm was owned by Trewithen Farms Ltd and on the day in question Mr Chilcott fell from a height and died.
The accident was reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), leading to a mandatory jury inquest.
A post-mortem stated that Mr Chilcott, from Ladock, near Truro, was securing a wood beam between steel structures that formed part of the barn construction.
Mr Chilcott was initially manning the cherry picker, which he brought to the site himself, before swapping and going into the cage at the top of it.
During the process Mr Chilcott struggled to get a beam in place as it was too long so leaned out of the cage and tried to lever it in place with a metal bar.
However, as he leaned out Mr Chilcott lost balance and fell to the ground.
He wasn’t wearing a harness or helmet at the time and a cause of death was given as severe head injury.
Giving evidence at the inquest, Mr Chilcott’s wife Sally told the jury that she did the paperwork for her husband’s business.
She spoke of knowing something had happened but only finding out what when she visited the farm.
She said: “Finding out the way I did… there was awareness that something had happened but for me to have to drive to the site and find out what happened… there could have been some communication.”
Other family members present described police not notifying Sally as “appalling” and “atrocious”.
Next to give evidence was dairy farmer Ross Denning who worked closely with Mr Chilcott over the years and knew him well with the two having been on ski holidays together.
Mr Denning said he was part of what was in effect the project management team on this day, and that he, Mr Chilcott and Joey Wagstaff, had encountered an issue when it came to joining the columns.
Mr Denning said there was some overlap meaning the wood wouldn’t fit. Visibly upset while giving evidence, Mr Denning said that Mr Chilcott was using a bar to lever the base with one foot on the bottom bar and his knee possibly on the top rail.
He went on to state how the bar gave way and Mr Chilcott fell five or six meters. Mr Denning immediately asked to be lowered to the ground where he found Mr Chilcott unconscious.
Mr Wagstaff then gave evidence, explaining how he, Mr Denning and Mr Chilcott had been trying to get the bolt holes to line-up. When Mr Wagstaff couldn’t do it he and Mr Chilcott swapped over with Mr Chilcott entering the cage.
Mr Wagstaff said: “I lifted the cage back up and got him (Mr Chilcott) into position. I just followed his hand signals until he indicated he was happy with where it was. I saw Peter levering a bar doing exactly what Ross and I had been doing.
"He definitely had one foot on the lower rail which was knee height and had one knee on the top rail leaning over. I heard Ross scream so looked up and saw Pete falling. He hit a diagonal base bar causing him to spin.”
A HSE report determined that the lack of a hard hat wasn’t relevant and the cherry picker wasn’t defective in any way.
However, although the cherry picker was robust its forks didn’t fit into the man cage properly leading the HSE to determine that it wasn’t the right piece of equipment for the job.
An integrated work platform should have been used instead, it said.
HSE stated that Mr Chilcott’s death came about as a combination of a lack of harness and restraint system and him over reaching. Other issues were also found by an inspector around the site, but they have since been addressed.
After a period of deliberation the jury returned a conclusion of accidental death.
