07.07.2007

For want of a crane!

The father of a man who died in the floods that hit Yorkshire last month is claiming that his son died because rescue services insisted on persisting with their specialist equipment rather than calling in a small crane.

The man, Mike Barnett, 28, is believed to have died from hypothermia after his foot became trapped in the grille of a large drain that he was trying to clear near the tropical fish importers in Hessle, where he worked. He was trapped for more than four hours with the water up to his neck.

His father, said that the rescuers, which included 15 firefighters, plus police and ambulance staff, were "virtually arguing" over how to save him.

His employer, Andrew Claxton, who arrived an hour after the emergency services had arrived, said that the emergency services ignored his pleas to call in a small crane or a tractor to haul him clear. He said firefighters were intent on using their specialist gear when Barnett could easily have been pulled out by basic equipment.

He described watching Barnett loose the will to live. "He had no energy left. He was trying to keep his head above the water and was spluttering. It was horrendous to see. A doctor was giving him injections to keep his body going," he said. "He had nothing left. He was knocking the ventilator out of his mouth with a lazy hand as if to say: 'I've had enough'."

Neighbours had been diving down to try to free Mr Barnett. "All that was trapping him was a 4ft square gateway," said Claxton. "But the emergency services were trying to lift it out horizontally and so meeting resistance. I kept telling them they needed to lift it vertically. They said they hadn't got a crane, but they didn't need a great big crane.”

"They only had to lift him 5ft out to get him safe. A tractor may have done it or a lorry with a small crane on it. They just needed to use something that could have been found anywhere. I could have driven a crane up from London in the time. There was too much water pressure to pull him out horizontally."

Instead, Mr Claxton said the firefighters tried scissor type spreaders, normally used to free trapped car crash victims, and metal cutters to try to cut the metal away.

"It was not all that well thought through," he said. "They had all this weird and wonderful equipment that was more or less useless. In that situation they needed to get back to basics. "

At first Barnett had not seemed too concerned, even asking if the fish were OK. Claxton said: "Initially I think he imagined there were so many people around him that he would be okay. About 15 minutes before he died, the police ushered me away saying they were the professionals and that I was causing trouble, getting in the way."

Humberside's fire chief, Frank Duffield, said: "Every member of the emergency services who attended that day acted in a dedicated and professional manner with little regard for their own safety whilst desperately trying to save Michael's life."