Man crushed by food mixer

A maintenance man was crushed to death inside a giant food mixer which suddenly started up while he was repairing it, an inquest heard today.

Andrew Johnston, 26, of Inn Road, Dollingstown, Co Armagh, suffered a horrific death at Avondale Foods in Lurgan in July 2006.

An inquest in Craigavon heard Mr Johnston had been called to repair a giant mixer used for making coleslaw, which had broken down for the second time near the end of a night shift.

Health and safety officer Nancy Henry, who carried out an investigation into the death, said Mr Johnston had disconnected a safety switch which prevented the mixer operating while the safety guard on the top was open.

Fellow workers told of seeing the injured man stretched out across the top of the open mixer. No-one knew how he got into it, whether intentionally or by falling.

Ms Henry said disconnection of the safety switch meant the machine would have thought the lid was closed even when it was open.

“The machine could not be made to malfunction during inspection. The only way it could be made to start was by pressing one of the paddle buttons – the implication being that Mr Johnston pressed the button that started the paddles.”

She said it was unknown whether he had done so inadvertently.

The paddles in the huge mixer turned round, crushing Mr Johnston against the side. A post-mortem showed he suffered extensive internal injuries to the chest, abdomen and lower limbs, that his pelvis and both legs were broken and one leg almost ripped off in mid-calf.

He survived the initial crushing but was declared dead when firefighters eventually freed his body from the mixer some 25 minutes later.

Factory charge hand Paul Gibson told the inquest he had seen Mr Johnston climb into a mixer once before, but had never seen any other of the maintenance team do so.

He said that when he had seen the maintenance man stretched out over the open top of the mixer he suggested it would be better if he went around the other side. “He said he would be OK,” Mr Gibson said.

Night shift supervisor Gillian Kelly said when a worker spotted Mr Johnston was trapped in the mixer she hit the stop button and ran to call an ambulance. “He was not screaming or anything, but I knew he must be injured.”

Machine operator Anthony Burns, who stayed with the injured man to comfort him until ambulance men arrived, told the inquest: “Andy never said anything about what happened. He was mainly asking for help.”

Ambulance man Joseph Wright said when he arrived the injured man was sitting in the mixing bowl with both legs caught up in the aluminium paddles. “He spoke to give his name and said he was in pain all over his body. One leg was hanging off in mid-calf.

“He was dipping in and out of consciousness and said he had a pain in his chest. It took 20 to 25 minutes to get him out and there was no sign of life. We gave him CPR, but he was declared dead. He didn’t say how the accident happened, just that he was in pain.”

A jury of five women and four men formally recorded that Mr Johnston died of crush asphyxia and multiple injuries when he became trapped in a machine he was repairing.

The dead man’s father, Samuel, did not stay until the end of the inquest – he left when the jury retired, saying his son had died in an accident and the family wanted to try and get on with their lives.