Woman killed by electric door at underground car park
'It could have been avoided,' inspector says
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An electrical company has been fined £25,000 after a woman was pulled into the shutter door machinery and crushed to death.
Heidi Chalkley was heading out on a night out in Cambridge when she grabbed hold of the rising door after asking her friend: “Have you ever held on to it as it goes up?,” an inquest heard last year.
The social worker panicked as her hands got trapped and dragged into the shutter door mechanism on 14 August, 2016, the hearing in Huntingdon was told.
The 40-year-old died at the scene of multiple injuries.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the sensors at the top of the door, which should have stopped it, were incorrectly wired and no longer functioned as the door opened.
BS Graves (Electrical) Limited had carried out work on the roller shutter door at Ruth Bagnall Court since 2012, the HSE said.
The firm had inspected it a month before the accident, but the company did not check the operation of safety sensors and failed to identify the fault, it added.
The company based in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, pleaded guilty at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
It was fined £25,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,500, the HSE said.
Ms Chalkley pressed the button to open the roller-shutter door, held on to the grille as it rose and became trapped as it wound around the roller, fatally crushing her.
“This tragic and distressing incident has had an untold impact on all those who knew Heidi," said HSE inspector Graeme Warden after the hearing. "It could have been avoided if the company had ensured employees were suitably trained to inspect the doors and the functioning of the safety sensors.”
Additional reporting by Press Association