A WREXHAM engineer crushed to death under a bus he was working on had narrowly escaped injury in an incident at the same depot days earlier, an inquest jury heard.
During the first of a two day inquest into the death of Phil Formstone, 46, of Narrow Lane, Gresford, the jury heard the popular man, passionate about football and cricket, had been discovered under a vehicle at the firm’s Oswestry depot by bus driver Martin Ratcliffe.
Mr Ratcliffe said on the Sunday morning he had returned to the bus depot and thought nothing of seeing the mechanic’s legs sticking out from under the bus.
After lunch he decided to go and chat with Mr Formstone, calling his name and tapping his foot but without response.
Realising something was wrong he said he rushed to the cab and succeeded in moving the vehicle forward, before calling the emergency services.
Consultant pathologist Professor Archibald Malcolm, who carried out the post-mortem examination, described the crush injuries he found to Mr Formstone’s left rib cage, consistent he said with a bus rolling onto, but not over, the man.
He added Mr Formstone would have lost consciousness immediately and death would have occurred within minutes.
Friend Keith Jones told the Shrewsbury hearing Mr Formstone had been left shattered by an incident just days before, texting him to say he “had been lucky to get out”.
In that earlier incident Mr Formstone had been working on a bus raised up on a four column lift.
He had left to make a phone call and during that time one of the columns experienced ‘creep’, tilting the bus in such a way that the axle stand gave way and the front of the bus had crashed to the ground.
Mr Jones said his friend had been left shocked by the incident.
It was on the Saturday that drivers reported problems putting bus 2113 into gear, filling in a defect notice and leaving the vehicle parked outside the workshop for the duty engineer, which on Sunday was Mr Formstone.
The jury watched footage of a series of reconstructions carried out by civilian police vehicle examiner Raymond Whixon
“At the time of the incident, the engine must have been running and the wheels not chocked,” he said.
“If the wheels had been chocked and/or the brake applied, this incident could not have occurred.”
Asked by coroner John Ellery to give his opinion of what took place, Mr Whixon said: “I think he has gone to move the bus, it hasn’t worked and he has forgotten to reapply the hand brake. It had to have been off to allow any sequence of events.
The bus moves very quickly and he would not have been able to get out of the way.”
The Health and Safety Executive said it had concluded best practice had not been followed in either incidents, but added: “It is impossible to know why Mr Formstone did not use wheel chocks.
"There is evidence of his good attitude towards safety and it seems he would often point out safe practice to others.”
The executive served an improvement notice on Arriva, which the company had complied with, establishing safe systems of working for these and other procedures.
Proceeding