James ‘Jim’ O’Carroll, father of footballer Seamus O’Carroll, died as he entered office at council yard
A warning in regards to the potential risks of automated gates was raised by Well being & Security Authority inspector Helen McCarthy, who investigated the circumstances of James “Jim” O’Carroll’s loss of life, as she gave proof at his inquest.
Mr O’Carroll’s son, Seamus, who lately retired from the Limerick senior soccer group and is a garda in Dublin, excused himself from Limerick Coroner’s Court docket as proof of his father’s deadly accidents had been learn into the file by Coroner John McNamara.
James O’Carroll (52) was employed by Limerick Metropolis and County Council for greater than 20 years and labored as a highway sweeper out of a equipment yard operated by the authority in Newcastle West.
Entry to the yard was managed by a one-tonne automated metal gate, measuring six metres by 4 metres.
As Mr O’Carroll was normally the primary particular person into the yard each morning he would activate the automated gate by ringing a quantity from his cell phone. The gate may be activated by a key fob.
He would then proceed to position a wood plank in entrance of a single sensor positioned on the within the gate to interrupt the sensor, so the gate would stay open for his colleagues.
Ms McCarthy stated she had found this observe was “commonplace for a few years” on the yard.
On April 14, 2015, Mr O’Carroll had arrived on the yard and tried to enter the entry gate on his bicycle, however, as he went to seize the wood plank, the gate out of the blue closed on him smashing his rib cage and shoulders. He died on the scene.
The deadly accident was captured on CCTV cameras on the yard.
Con Mulcahy from Tournafullla, a mechanic employed on the yard, was the primary particular person to return upon the scene, he freed Mr O’Carroll and carried out CPR on him till an ambulance arrived.
Garda Sergeant Mark Mannix stated Seamus O’Carroll recognized his father’s physique to him on the morgue at College Hospital Limerick later that day.
Sergeant Mannix stated gardai contacted the HSA and designated the gate was designated a “crime scene”.
Ms McCarthy stated she decided that the council was working an “unsafe” gate, as “the automated gate had just one sensor contained in the gate, and there was none on the skin wall which may have prevented this accident as it might have detected his [Mr O’Carroll’s] presence”.
HSA inspector Helen McCarthy. Photograph: Brendan Gleeson
She stated the gate didn’t have a “Main Edge Safety” system “to detect an obstruction in its path, and, once more, this might have prevented the accident”.
Ms McCarthy stated another excuse for the deadly accident was that “the automated gate had a closing pressure of roughly one metric tonne which didn’t diminish till the [closing] cycle was full, due to this fact the gate saved closing on the deceased even when he was trapped”.
“I additionally discovered Limerick Metropolis and County Council had not ready a written threat evaluation for the automated gate.”
Ms McCarthy stated she carried out “many interviews” with Mr O’Carroll’s co-workers who advised her there have been different earlier “close to misses” involving the gate inflicting harm to a truck, in addition to an incident “involving one other pedestrian worker”.
“Sadly these prevalence weren’t acted upon…..they weren’t documented, and due to this fact missed”, Ms McCarthy stated.
She stated she ready a file for the DPP, which subsequently introduced felony proceedings towards the council earlier than Limerick Circuit Felony Court docket in November 2021.
The native authority was convicted of breaches of the Security, Well being and Welfare at Work Act and fined €75,000 after it pleaded responsible to 3 fees arising out of Mr O’Carroll’s loss of life, together with failure to offer staff with secure entry to the yard.
“From the CCTV footage you possibly can see that as quickly because the gate begins to open, he (Mr O’Carroll) makes an attempt to enter and he bends down to choose up the wood plank and he doesn’t realise that the gate has out of the blue began to reverse its motion and shut upon him,” Ms McCarthy stated.
“There was one sensor contained in the gate, and what’s worthy of word is that that is the minimal security precaution with these gates, and sadly you will notice this in lots of home and lots of business settings to at the present time.”
“The Well being and Security Authority has issued, on foot of this accident, and in addition on two earlier events issued security alerts advising the general public to have two sensors and in addition to have Main-Edge Safety on automated gates, which when it detects an object or an individual, it robotically bounces [the gate] again open to stops it closing in on prime of the particular person.”
Ms McCarthy stated: “On this case the gate was arrange in order that if you happen to activated the gate the gate would open however if you happen to activated it once more, as a substitute of constant to open it might truly shut”.
Ms McCarthy stated she couldn’t decide the precise purpose for the gate closing on Mr O’Carroll, nonetheless it was doable his personal cell phone had re-activated the gate “when he put the telephone again into his pocket”.
“It was sadly an accident ready to occur,” she stated.
Ms McCarthy additionally stated that, on the time, it was doable to activate the gate “from anyplace on the planet, an inch away, a mile away, 1,000,000 miles away”.
One didn’t need to be standing close to the gate to open and shut it: “So long as there was a sign and the cellular quantity was registered to the place, you could possibly be in Timbuktu and you could possibly activate the gate.”
“It begs the query what’s the secure operation of automated gates, and the conclusion now we have come to is that the most secure mechanism – if you’re utilizing a cell phone – is to have a full visible of the gate earlier than you activate it,” she stated.
She stated many gates didn’t have this secure system “however the issue is you do not know if there’s a youngster or a canine or no matter there, so that is definitely a precautionary story”.
“The most secure mode of operation could be to have a hold-to-run fob system, which suggests that you’re actually standing in entrance of the gate and also you level your fob on the gate and it’s important to maintain your finger on the fob in an effort to hold it open.”
“However the issue is that in at the moment’s society no one desires to attend; we need to have prompt entry.”
A postmortem discovered loss of life was “resulting from cardiac respiratory failure secondary to blunt harm to the chest”.
Coroner John McNamara, whereas commenting on the reason for loss of life, stated Mr O’Carroll died from “a crush harm in a one-metric-tonne gate”.
The jury returned a unanimous verdict of misadventure.
