23.09.2019

Criminal prosecution for fatal man basket drop

Ireland’s Nationwide Crane Hire (Formerly Cussen Crane Hire) and Palfinger Ireland are facing criminal prosecutions following the death of two men who drowned after a man basket suspended from a loader crane dropped into the river Shannon in Limerick in August 2015. See original new report – Twin fatality from suspended platform

The men, TJ O’Herlihy, 36, and Bryan Whelan, 29, were carrying out maintenance on the Thomond Bridge in the city, and were wearing harnesses and lanyards when the hoist cable failed and were unable to unclip themselves from the basket. Another man, Paul Murphy, 26, did manage to unclip his harness and survived.

The formal proceedings were initiated this summer and have now come before the Limerick District Court. The judge agreed a request from the Health and Safety Authority to adjourn the case until November in order to allow more time to prepare its evidence. Judge Marian O’Leary, while granting the delay, raised a concern over the four year delay in bringing charges.

Nationwide Crane Hire faces two charges for have exposed the men to risk by failing to ensure that a crane and its boom mounted winch, were in a condition that was safe, and that the overload protection safety device was defective and therefore failed to protect the hoist cable from being overloaded.

Palfinger Ireland faces a charge that it failed to provide adequate information to Nationwide Crane Hire about the use for which the crane was designed or information about the carrying out of a functional test of the safety overload protection system, when it imported and supplied the crane to the company in 2003.

UPDATE March 28th 2022
Luke Carberry, on behalf of Palfinger Ireland, and Nationwide Crane hire director Brendan Rainsford -formerly Cussons Crane hire - each entered guilty pleas to breaches of the health and safety act. Sentencing was postponed until July.

Vertikal Comment

This was a tragic and avoidable incident, to start with the man basket could have been equipped with a safety sling back to the fixed hook that prevented it dropping into the water by more than a metre or so, the men should never have been tethered to the platform when working above water, while a proper underbridge inspection platform - which are available locally - would have been a better method for carrying out the work.

As bad as this incident was, it is a scandal that the Authority can sit around for four years before laying charges, and even then ask for more time to prepare evidence. It is also a disgrace for the families of the two men who would almost certainly have been looking for closure, and will now have to live through the whole again, at a time when some of the pain might have been fading. It is also disgraceful that valuable lessons that might be learnt from this unfortunate incident have still not been published, and finally it is disgraceful that the owners and employees of Nationwide Crane hire have been kept waiting all this time with this incident hanging over their heads.

And as to roping in Palfinger for not explaining the ins and outs of every single possible use or misuse of the crane 16 years ago, smacks more of ‘Ambulance Chasing’ tactics than justice or any real attempt to make the work place safer.