Great-grandad crushed to death

12:13pm Monday 5th November 2007

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A GREAT-grandad died after being crushed by a faulty apple harvesting machine which reversed into him, an inquest heard.

Clifford Minchin suffered massive internal injuries when the machine pinned him against another vehicle at the agricultural machinery firm where he worked.

The reverse pedal of the harvesting machine had stuck and it kept going backwards into Mr Minchin, of Newbury Park, Ledbury. The 72-year-old later died in hospital from internal bleeding. Christopher Lenczuk, a colleague who was driving the Pattenden Grouse Apple Harvester, described to the Gloucester inquest how he had been manoeuvring the vehicle into the workshop at Bavenhill Mechanics Ltd when the accident happened.

He said he had taken his foot off the reverse pedal but it stuck and continued to travel backwards - a fault which has subsequently been rectified on all machines, the inquest heard. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death on Mr Minchin.

His wife Poppy said her husband left school at 15 and had always worked with agricultural machinery and had worked at Bavenhill for many years, not wanting to retire when he reached the age of 65.

Mr Lenczuk, an agricultural engineer, who also worked at Bavenhill, said Mr Minchin was standing behind a Volvo lorry in the yard outside the workshop when he was driving the apple harvester.

"I took my foot off the reverse controller and she carried on backwards," he said.

Gloucestershire coroner Alan Crickmore asked him what he did when he realised the harvester was still going backwards.

"I turned the ignition off to stop the engine," he said.

Adrian Spangers, a design engineer, who works at nearby Pattenden, said he went to see what had happened.

"Mr Minchin was lying on the ground between the two vehicles. He was covered by a coat. He was conscious but not coherent." Ron Jervis, of the Health and Safety Executive, said tests carried out the day after the accident showed that a mechanism had stuck leading to the vehicle jamming in reverse.

He said that all the company's machines had since been altered so that there would be no repetition of the accident.

After the inquest Robert Chapman, managing director of Bavenhill Mechanics Co Ltd and Pattenden Machinery Ltd, both of Preston Cross, Ledbury, expressed his condolences to the family.