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Scaffolder died in mystery fall at flats block
A SCAFFOLDER who was so experienced he once led a team of men working on the Globe Theatre project on the South Bank died in a baffling work accident, an inquest heard this week.
Denis Mulcahy, 62, died in May after apparently falling from a platform while putting up scaffolding around Haliday House in Newington Green – a job his son said he could have done “with his eyes closed”.
He fell from between the first and second floor of the 13-storey block of flats in February, but spent three months in hospitals before he was moved to one near his home in Welling, Kent.
Mr Mulcahy died from a lung infection after secretions collected in his throat which he could not clear because of his immobility due to broken bones.
St Pancras coroner Dr Andrew Reid accepted Mr Mulcahy died from aspiration pneumonia but said the underlying cause was multiple injuries sustained in the fall.
Witnesses told the inquest they could not explain how the accident occurred as Mr Mulcahy, originally from Limerick in Ireland, was a safe scaffolder with more than 30 years’ experience who never took risks. Safety experts said the construction site in Mildmay Street was secure and safe.
Unusually, the jury were shown film footage of Mr Mulcahy’s fall, captured by a resident’s CCTV camera trained on the car park below the tower block.
They returned an open verdict after deciding the circumstances could not be determined from the evidence they had seen and heard. The footage caught only the moment after Mr Mulcahy fell and did not show what happened, although it did capture the desperate minutes that followed as his colleagues and ambulance staff fought to save him.
Michael Lake, a scaffolder, said the tragedy was a mystery. He added: “We’re still trying to work out what happened. He was six feet two inches and never took risks. You have to have common sense to be on the scaffolds so long.”
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, the government safety body, is continuing.
Speaking after the inquest, Mr Mulcahy’s sons James, 27, and Shaun, 19, and his brother Stephen, 61, described the tragedy as a “freak accident”.
They said in earlier years Mr Mulcahy had managed teams of 25 scaffolders and been the foreman on prestigious projects such as the Shakespearean Globe Theatre on the South Bank. Shaun said: “He was coming to the end of his career and didn’t want the responsibility any more, but this was a very straightforward job. He could have done it with his eyes closed.”
They paid tribute to Mr Mulcahy’s pride in his work, describing him as their “best mate and best friend”.
Mr Mulcahy’s partner of five years, Helen Seakins, said she had not recovered from his death. “When your man leaves in the morning and tells you he loves you and doesn’t come home, it comes as a full blow,” she said. |
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