Widow tells of steel bar tragedy
The widow of a Black Country tyre fitter wept as she told an inquest how her husband looked "unrecognisable" after he was hit in the face by a steel bar.
A jury at Dudley Coroner's Court heard the harrowing evidence at the inquest on 45-year-old Kevin Rice before returning a verdict of accidental death.
Expert evidence revealed he had been hit by a solid steel bar as he removed a tyre using a press machine. Parts of it became detached and were flung as far as 10 metres by pressures of up to 150 tons.
He survived in a vegetative state for seven months after the accident in January 2006 at Linde Creighton Ltd, which is based along Dartmouth Road, in West Bromwich.
At the inquest yesterday his widow, Lisa Marie Rice, broke down as she relived the moment she first saw her husband after the accident. "They said it was bad, but he was unrecognisable,"
She added: "After he came out of hospital he went to the Guardian Care Centre. If Kevin had regained consciousness they would have begun his rehabilitation, but it never came to that."
A pathologist's report showed Mr Rice, who lived in Stoke-on-Trent, had died from "complications" following a severe brain injury. He also lost an eye in the accident and suffered an indentation to his head.
Principal inspector from the Health and Safety Executive, David Arnsby, said one part of the press machine was in the process of being removed from the tyre fitting industry as a direct result of the accident.
He said the legs of a part of the press machine had become uneven during the removal of the tyre, causing excessive pressure on some of the legs and prompting a steel bar to be "ejected with considerable force". But there was no fault with the machine Mr Rice was using.
