A coroner has called for improved rescue training for operatives of mobile elevated platforms after the death of an electrician working on a Winvic site.
Fiona Butler wrote to six organisations, including the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF), calling for rescue training drills to form part of the courses that builders and other professionals undertake for licences to operate MEWPs.
The recommendation was made following an inquest into the death of Jason Holland, a self-employed electrician who died in February 2023 while installing cabling within containment at the Mercia Park site run by main contractor Winvic.
Holland became trapped between a scissor-lift railing and a containment tray in a roof space while undertaking tie wrapping of an armoured cable in the tray. The scissor lift could not be moved as the electrician was positioned over the rail and would have been at risk of falling 20 metres.
It took around 20 minutes for Holland to be rescued by a harnessed operative via a basket-to-basket rescue. He was then taken to Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, where he died from a brain injury caused by a cardiac arrest.
The coroner noted that staff from the principal contractor and subcontractors were involved in the rescue, but “not one of those had been practically trained on how to conduct this rescue before”.
“I heard evidence that time is of the essence: for example, in a suspension-from-a-harness-type scenario (not Jason’s case), between five and 15 minutes could be the difference between life or death. The same, however, can be said for someone who is suffering from positional asphyxia because they are trapped,” Butler said.
The coroner added that while construction operatives undertake one-day training to receive an IPAF card, also known as a Powered Access Licence, the syllabus only “touches upon rescue-at-height scenarios”.
She said that while those training for an IPAF card are practically assessed on MEWPs, the syllabus “does not include practical training on rescue-at-height scenarios or basket-to-basket rescues drills as standard”.
She noted that she had heard evidence “of the challenges that the organisations had found in sourcing a practical drill-based course for an at-height rescue”.
Butler concluded: “I am therefore concerned to note that practical-based rescue drills are not part of the standard competenc[y]-based training offered for those operating these machines who are likely to be first on site facilitating rescues.”
The six organisations notified by the coroner were IPAF, the Road Transport Industry Training Board; training and qualifications provider Lantra; the Independent Training Standards Scheme and Register; the National Plant Operators Registration Scheme; and the National Open College Network.
The coroner told them they should take action “to prevent future death” and ordered them to respond to her within 56 days with details of their actions or plans for action.
She said that “whilst Mr Holland’s case concerned the construction industry and the assessment of competency of operating MEWPs through IPAF, I understand that all of those organisations identified operate within their relevant sectors […] competency-based courses [which] follow a similar syllabus, without any practical rescue-from-height drills being offered as standard”.
A copy of the report was sent to Winvic Construction, Walter Miles Electrical Engineers and Direct Electrical (Leicester) as interested parties.
The Mercia Park project is a logistics development on a 238-acre site located in north west Leicester. Included are six warehouses and, according to Winvic, the project is worth £21m.
Construction News has contacted all of the organisations named above for comment.
