Industrial Accident Lawyer Calls for Work Safety Improvements Following Cyanide Death Inquest
14/10/2011
Lawyers representing the devastated daughter of a man killed by the fatal exposure to cyanide while he was working are leading a call for health & safety lessons to be learned at a leading Billingham chemical plant.
At the inquest into the death of Steven Murtagh, 52, from Ingleby Barwick in Stockton on Tees, a jury returned an open verdict. This decision meant there was a lack of evidence required to determine the circumstances around Mr Murtagh’s death.
However, subsequently the cause of his death on 7th September 2009 was confirmed as cyanide poisoning and Mr Murtagh’s shattered daughter now calls for reassurances that safety protocols were adequate at the time of the accident.
Keith Cundall, workplace injury and accident specialist at national law firm Irwin Mitchell, acted as the representative for Mr Murtagh’s daughter, Amy, from Whalley Range, Manchester at the inquest.
Mr Cundall pointed out that there were unanswered questions surrounding the fatality and reported that a Health & Safety Executive (HSE) report indicated possible failings in safety procedures at the plant in the weeks and days prior to Mr Murtagh’s death.
An investigation into the incident by the HSE revealed that the gloves Mr Murtagh was wearing appeared to be undamaged and Cleveland Police ruled out any suspicious circumstances.
However, Keith Cundall said there were potential failings highlighted by the HSE from its investigation into Mr Murtagh’s death. These included:
- Undergloves had not been worn underneath the standard plastic gloves, recommended to further protect the hands from any chemical spillage.
- No guidelines were issued as to the duration that the gloves, or any other item, could be safely used for. Specifically no time limit for wearing a single pair of gloves was laid out.
- No preferred method for wearing or removing gloves was outlined. (The HSE recommended that Lucite review this issue and introduce a standard practice for workers to follow so as to reduce exposure to harmful chemicals).
- Lucite’s Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) assessment was not fully compliant. There was a failure to discuss the matter of how long the supplied Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) would maintain a successful barrier to harmful substances.
In 2003 Lucite stopped carrying out personal monitoring on staff to assess potential exposure to cyanide. Although this practice was discontinued due to consistently low levels of cyanide being recorded, COSHH states that monitoring is still requisite where the failure of controls could potentially result in a serious health effect.
Mr Cundall said: “Mr Murtagh was a very experienced process engineer – he had worked at Lucite International for 25 years and there are several significant question marks around the circumstances of his tragic death.
“The open verdict at his inquest means many of these questions remain unanswered we are continuing to investigate the incident behalf of his daughter.
“Our client is seeking reassurances that industry-standard safety protocols were being followed at Lucite International and that her father’s safety was not needlessly compromised.
“Nothing we do can bring Mr Murtagh back, but we can aim to provide a crumb of comfort to his daughter if we can instigate improvements to safety procedures that will help ensure nothing like this ever happens to anybody else.”
For media enquiries please contact the Irwin Mitchell Press Office on 0114 274 4666
Back to news