Workplace death inquest

[projekktor id=’27323′]
The hot, awkward nature of the welding job he was on may have been what killed 29-year-old Joshua Farrell at a limestone quarry in 2014. That’s what a Hamilton coroner’s inquest heard today on the last day of evidence.

The Ministry of Labour investigator Rick Shulist says he laid awake nights trying to figure out how Joshua Farrell was electrocuted by a welding rod. His voice cracked and trembled with emotion on the stand as he described investigating the death.

In a photo, it shows the position Farrell was found. He had 26 inches of space to work in, all metal. On one side, the coal bin he was welding plates onto for structural support. On the other his back pushed against a filthy duct.

“It would have created frustration,” Shulist said.

It was a hot day inside the Carmeuse lime quarry, the inquest heard. Farrell, 6 foot-1, 200 lbs and muscular was coated in a layer of sweat. That would have helped conduct the electrical current that killed him. What no one knows is how he came into contact with the source of the electricity.

In arc welding, a wand, sometimes called a whipper-stinger, is attached to an electric cable. Sticks of metal, called electrodes are grasped with the stinger and melted down to fuse metal, one stick lasts about two minutes. Somehow Joshua Farrell’s neck touched the stick he was using, the electricity travelled through him and out at a point he was touching metal. He may have tripped, but Shulist has another theory.

“I believe he was repositioning his body to go to the other side.”

Left-handed Farrell would have had the whipper in his left hand and the cable in his right while he was sliding on a metal beam. He could have rotated a hand and touched the tool to his skin. If he then spasmed, it would explain why the electrode was found protruding 4 cm into his neck.