Inquest adjourned into labourer's death
An inquest on a labourer who died after cutting open a methanol tank at a factory has been adjourned.
Raymond Wyman died after suffering serious burns and fractures at KTC Edibles, Heath Road, in Darlaston.
The inquest has been taking place at Black Country Coroners Court this week.
Coroner Zafar Siddique adjourned the case yesterday after new allegations were made on Wednesday, which he said needed further discussion.
A provisional date for the inquest to resume has been set for August 28.
The inquest had earlier heard from the building site boss who said he did not know why one of his employees was working on top of a methanol tank when it exploded, inflicting fatal injuries.
Nitesh Hari, project manager for NKD Machinery, had been asked to remove the tank along with other industrial plant as part of a clearance exercise on behalf of KTC Edibles, the new owners of the site.
But Mr Hari said the cost of purging the tank of its highly-flammable gas, as well as transport fees, meant he would lose money on the deal and he gave 34-year-old Raymond Wyman clear instructions to work only on a nearby nitrogen tank, which also needed to be dismantled and removed from the site.
But later that day the father-of-six, from Pensnett, was found with serious burns and fracture injuries beside the upturned methanol tank following the blast in October 2016.
He died later in hospital. Asked how he came to be working on the tank, Mr Hari said: “I don’t know. For the last two years I’ve been trying to understand why, and I just don’t know.”
He told the inquest that on the morning of the tragedy he had run through with Mr Wyman and a small team of labourers which work to prioritise that day.
They were to strip a nearby nitrogen tank of its copper and aluminium so that there were no precious metals left on site overnight.
The jury was shown bodycam footage from the aftermath of the blast.
