Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)
  • What would a coroner have said?
  • globalti
    Free Member

    We have a brook running under our house in a culvert. At this time of the year the water is just a trickle. Occasionally we do some maintenance like repointing and underpinning on the walls and this morning a property maintenance builder bloke showed up to do some work. He had just got set up with his planks and wheelbarrow when there was a roar and a 2 foot high torrent of muddy water came down, washing everything away. Luckily he was able to jump out, I reckon that if he had been knocked over he could have banged his head on a rock and died. He found his barrow and some of the planks later, a hundred yards downstream.

    I rang United Utilities in fury and after insisting, got to speak with somebody senior who rang me back later and admitted that today is one of two days in the year when they open the scour valve in the reservoir upstream to test it. He told me they checked immediately downstream of the dam but obviously couldn’t be expected to check the several miles down to the river.

    So what would the coroner have said? Our fault? The builder’s fault? Death by misadventure? In the ten years we have lived here we’ve never seen this happen.

    tuffty
    Free Member

    Scary! Just as well some kids weren’t playing in it as it’s the summer holidays.

    jambourgie
    Free Member

    How come you have to maintain it if it belongs to United Utilities?

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    Junkyard
    Free Member

    their fault as they caused it and should take reasonable precautions to warn people. They cannot say we cannot be expected [ means could not be bothered] to do what they clearly do need to do to make sure it is safe to do the test.

    Personally i would write to them demanding a response and ask to see their risk assesment as you think it was a lucky escape etc ans they need to change

    Could have been much much worse and you , they and the builder all , thankfully, got lucky.

    globalti
    Free Member

    Nobody plays in it but occasionally curious neighbours and their kids do come up the stream bed and under the house. I go down there from time to check everything’s in order.

    globalti
    Free Member

    How come you have to maintain it if it belongs to United Utilities?

    It’s on our property so we are responsible for the maintenance of the walls and bed.

    jambourgie
    Free Member

    Wow, so you’ve got your own private tunnel. Awesome!

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    What JY said, I reckon. Make them go through the process – otherwise, it’s just a few people on the phone in an office saying “woo, that was a close one today Brett”. I’d have thought they might leaflet folk who have houses by the stream to let them know the test dates. If you push them now, they may do this in the future. That was a pretty close call. Thankfully nobody’s been hurt.

    globalti
    Free Member

    Good advice thanks, I’ll write to them formally tomorrow. They should only do the tests during term time and should perhaps leaflet the street.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Buy one of these while you are at it, in preparation for next time…

    Greybeard
    Free Member

    I think it’s usual in such cases to open the valve gradually – so that anyone in the stream bed realises the level is rising and has ample time to reach safety. It would be worth asking if there’s any reason why they couldn’t do that (unless they did, and there was a pile of leaves blocking the bed further up that then broke suddenly…)

    globalti
    Free Member

    That’s also very possible; the brook runs down quite a narrow valley that’s choked with fallen trees and the only time it has flooded was when a load of debris came down and blocked it just upstream of us.

    Murray
    Full Member

    Do you have a grid to stop kids being carried under the house? My in laws had a similar stream under house and fitted one. Might have been more of an issue for them as the stream ran under the road for the next mile after the house. The hassle of clearing debris from the grid was better then worrying about someone being swept under.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    their fault as they caused it and should take reasonable precautions to warn people. They cannot say we cannot be expected [ means could not be bothered] to do what they clearly do need to do to make sure it is safe to do the test.

    isn’t it an obvious risk that the level of water in a river can rapidly rise and fall when you (like the OP, and possibly the builder) know that the flow is controlled by an artificial dam?

    if the OP is worried that the builder could have hit his head, wouldn’t a reasonable precaution for working in a slippy, hard-surfaced, confined space to have been to wear some PPE like a helmet?

    I’m not making the OP or the builder out to be a monster but I think the OP is getting an unduly soft reception. if the story had been “McMoonter opens handcarved sluice and MegaCorp employee miles away complains about getting wet”, then I think the reaction would have been the opposite.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Random guessing

    UU should probably have told you something
    You should have checked the source of the stream (which you appear to know) and informed the builder
    The builder should have checked his risks too. Did you tell the building that the stream was fed from a Dam?

    Next time I would suggest a phone call to the operations room who control the water release before commencing any work. You should never rely on being told something. Also a record in the UU control room that X is working on Y today so call X before any releases.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    As globalti says, he’s never seen this happen in a decade, so why pre-empt something you’re not expecting to happen?

    He told me they checked immediately downstream of the dam but obviously couldn’t be expected to check the several miles down to the river.

    Why ever not? Suddenly opening the sluice is going to send a shit-load of water down that isn’t going to magically disappear after the first hundred metres or so.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    As globalti says, he’s never seen this happen in a decade, so why pre-empt something you’re not expecting to happen?

    Not sure who that’s aimed at but it’s a classic line post accident/near miss. Same as the missus hears every day at work as a Vet that it’s OK he doesn’t bite.
    I’ve worked in some more interesting places that value thorough risk assessment & planning. I’ve been in places that don’t, it takes very little time to check things out.

    poly
    Free Member

    Well the coroner would have based his findings on all the evidence presented to him, not just one version of events.

    However, (s)he would have been interested in what was “reasonably foreseeable” at the time of the incident. As presented above the culvert carries water from some sort of dam/overflow. The landowner seems to be aware that this is part of its intended use. At the simplest level it appears to me that it is reasonably foreseeable that AT ANY TIME and WITHOUT PRIOR WARNING the utility company may need to open that valve and discharge water via the culvert; that is, after-all, its primary purpose. It is possible therefore that the conclusion is the land owner should have forseen the risk. Depending on the builder’s local knowledge, briefing etc. he may also have forseen the risk.

    If, as suggested, the utility company can show they have opened this valve for testing 20 times since the land owner has been there it seems all the more likely it is foreseeable. Further, if nobody has advised the utility company of any increased risk due to maintenance it seems difficult to imagine that it was forseeable that there was risk to personnel they could not reasonably be expected to predict were present. If the utility company appeared at a coroners hearing saying they have opened, say, 300 valves twice a year for the last ten years (6000 valve openings) and have no previous record of adverse incidents this would support “their” case.

    I think it would not be unreasonable to expect any competent builder working in a stream of flowing water to make reasonable enquiries of the land owner about the nature of the water course before starting work.

    batfink
    Free Member

    Small stream/tunnel under your house? Very dangerous:

    neilwheel
    Free Member

    It does sound like you are in a fairly unique position, with a dam fed culvert under your house?

    The company should have recognised this but didn’t. Best to ask to be informed in future and double check before any starting work.

    globalti
    Free Member

    More interesting replies. The builder does actually live further down our street but away from the brook. He did ask and I assured him that the water wouldn’t begin to rise unless there was heavy prolonged rain. Even after a heavy shower this morning it hasn’t risen because the catchment area is so dry.

    I’m going to write asking UU to give us a number to call where we can check before doing any work. I’m also going to suggest they fix some warning notices, also giving the number, up and down the brook because it runs parallel to our street through quite a few properties, under and through some gardens. As I wrote earlier, children do come up the brook from time to time and a small child would not be able to resist a 2′ wall of water. In France many rivers flow from hydro-electric schemes and there are prominent notices warning that the water can suddenly rise.

Viewing 21 posts - 1 through 21 (of 21 total)

The topic ‘What would a coroner have said?’ is closed to new replies.