A lorry driver who crashed into a motorway bridge most likely fell asleep seconds before the collision, an inquest heard.
Samuel Allen, 31, died at the scene despite the best efforts of a doctor and paramedics to save him.
Experienced HGV driver Mr Allen was driving a car transporter on the M62 westbound carriageway on 11 October 2022 when the collision happened.
Drivers behind his lorry saw it veer onto the hard shoulder then onto the embankment before hitting the parapet of a bridge at Beal Lane near junction 34 (A19 Selby).
An air ambulance from Nottinghamshire with a doctor on board was called to the scene as the Yorkshire Air Ambulance was attending another incident.
Members of the public helped cut back trees and branches near the passenger side door to help with the efforts to extricate Mr Allen from his cab.
At 3.18pm he went into cardiac arrest and was taken onto an ambulance trolley where the medical team worked to save him.
As they prepared him to be transported to Leeds General Infirmary, his condition deteriorated. Further attempts to resuscitate him proved futile and he was pronounced dead at 4.24pm.
‘Incredibly generous and kind’
Mr Allen was described by his father Bob as “full of life”, “a big guy with a huge personality” who “never did anything by halves”.
He was “incredibly generous, helpful, kind and thoughtful, and fun to be around” and his loss had left a big hole in their lives.
The inquest pieced together the days before the collision.
Mr Allen lived in Doncaster and worked as a full-time HGV driver for Delta Salvage in the city. Records showed that the Scania tractor unit he drove had been inspected and found to be in safe working order three weeks before the collision.
On Sunday, 9 October, he drove to the home of his partner Claire Esler in Glasgow.
The following day he picked up three vehicles from Northern Ireland on his lorry, returning to the mainland by ferry at 4.30pm. That night he slept in his cab.
On the day of the collision he started the drive back to the Delta Salvage yard at 5.40am, arriving there at 9.11am.
He then went to a dental appointment to have a tooth removed in Scunthorpe. He was given a local anaesthetic, but the extraction was unsuccessful.
He was considered fit for discharge from the clinic and there was no cause to give him advice that he shouldn’t drive after the procedure.
He told a dental nurse that he planned to go home to bed after leaving the surgery “because he’d not slept yet”. He didn’t appear tired, but told her he felt “a bit tired”.
Mr Allen talked to Ms Esler after the appointment and he “sounded terrible”. “He then told me he was going in to work, however he would just be doing yard work.”
No sign of braking
Mr Allen returned to the Delta Salvage yard at about 12.25pm.
A member of staff at the yard said Mr Allen’s face was swollen after the dental work and “he looked very drowsy”. He told Mr Allen he should not be driving.
In a statement to the inquest, held at Northallerton Coroner’s Court, director of the Delta Salvage Garry Hirst said that Mr Allen had not asked for the day off for the dental treatment, but would have been given it if he had.
That afternoon he was “his normal bouncy self” Mr Hirst said. He asked Mr Allen if he felt up to driving, and said he could go home if he didn’t, but he said he was fine.
Mr Allen drove the car transporter out of the yard at 1.55pm on a work trip to Middlesbrough. The crash happened at 2.26pm.
North Yorkshire Police forensic investigator PC Paddy Green told the inquest that Mr Allen’s HGV was driving at a steady 54mph. Then the vehicle had drifted off with no sign of driver input, either steering or braking.
It went through a gap in the safety barrier left to allow access to a farm road, but the barrier was unlikely to have made a difference given the size of the lorry.
PC Green said Mr Allen’s rest may have been affected by his tooth pain. One of the peak times for sleep-related collisions is between 2pm and 4pm, and he may have drifted into a series of ‘micro-sleeps’ lasting five to seven seconds before the crash.
Asked by the coroner Catherine Cundy whether he considered it was “more likely than not” that these micro-sleeps were the cause of the collision, he said he did.
A post mortem found that Mr Allen died of internal haemorrhaging due to liver lacerations caused by a fractured pelvis.
Ms Cundy concluded that the cause of death was a road traffic collision.