A MAINTENANCE worker from Scotland screamed for help as he fell to his death and drowned in a water cooling tower.
Michael Benn, from Glenrothes in Fife, fell into a pool at the bottom of the tower while working for an Aberdeen firm at a North Wales power station.
Firefighters used specialist equipment to rescue the married 37-year-old, but paramedics were unable to save him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr Benn was working for industrial cleaning firm Epsco, which was yesterday ordered to pay out £155,000 for the worker’s death.
At Mold Crown Court yesterday, the Aberdeen-based company pleaded guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety Act.
Prosecutor David Morgan told the court Mr Benn worked as a specialist industrial cleaner and was part of a team cleaning and servicing the pumps at the cooling pool on August 30, 2007.
The team leader and his colleagues Fraser Duff and Shane McNicoll were using a hose to push silt and debris from a river into a sump when the accident took place.
Mr Benn was worried a pump to drain water from the well was not working properly and went to the edge to investigate.
His colleagues heard his cries for help as he fell into the tower, but lost sight of him and were unable to save him.
Firefighters recovered the worker’s body from the bottom of the tower a short time later and Mr Benn was pronounced dead at around 4pm. The water in the pool was found to be about two metres deep.
Mr Morgan said that precautions such as a simple barrier would have prevented Mr Benn from falling to his death. He said: “A very simple physical barrier would have eliminated the risk of going too close to the edge of the slope.
“If Mr Benn was going to check the level of the water he would have thought twice if there was a physical barrier preventing him from doing so.
“There was an obvious risk, even in a good working environment but especially in this environment.
“This is a precaution that could have been taken at no expense and with little effort.”
The prosecutor, acting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), added that it was a combination of the absence of a barrier, no natural light and a slope in the ground which led to Mr Benn’s death.
Epsco was fined a total £35,000 and ordered to pay costs of £120,000 after a HSE investigation found the firm failed to have a safe system of work in place.
HSE Principal Inspector Colin Mew said: “This incident was entirely foreseeable and yet it was still allowed to happen.
“Epsco would have known Mr Benn or one of his colleagues would need to approach the sump in the course of their work. The inherent risk of working in this manner should have been obvious to any diligent employer. This company failed to put a safe system of work into place. The enclosed area where this work was taking place was poorly lit, noisy and conditions were wet and slippery.
“The cost of providing barriers or other measures and the time and effort involved would have been minimal.
“The real tragedy here is the human cost that has resulted from the death of Michael Benn and the ease with which his death could have been prevented. I hope that other employers take heed of this message.”
l AN engineering company has been fined £26,700 after a worker was injured when he fell while dismantling a redundant aerial mast. Ness Engineering, of Shetland, admitted a health and safety law breach when David Thomson, 22, suffered various broken bones in August 2010.
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