A man was found dead at his York home, five years after he struck his head in an incident at work.
Piotr Poweska, 43, died on 15 June, 2019, at his flat in Charlaine Court, Wigginton Road.
He had suffered frequent epileptic seizures after he fell from a container held up on a forklift truck in February 2014, an inquest heard today (Tuesday).
That happened at his workplace, Aaztec Associates, a manufacturer of toilet cubicles and washrooms, based at Becklands Close, Roecliffe, near Boroughbridge.
Mr Poweska had not had any significant health problems before 2014, an inquest jury heard at Harrogate Pavilions.
But he visited the emergency department at York Hospital 55 times between the date of his injury and his death.
These visits were prompted by repeated epileptic seizures, and he was put on anti-convulsant medication.
In a statement, Gary Kitching, consultant in emergency medicine at York Hospital, said: “Prior to Mr Poweska’s head injury in 2014, there is no real evidence from his hospital records to suggest he drank alcohol to excess.
“Following the injury, however, there were many attendances related to alcohol.”
He added: “Alcohol consumption may have represented his coping mechanism for the adverse effect that the head injury had upon his life.”
A toxicology report suggested he may have been drinking moderately on the day he died.
The day of the accident
A colleague of Mr Poweska, Andy Thewlis, gave a statement as to what happened when he suffered his injury at work in 2014.
They were emptying offcuts from a waste container into a skip in the rear yard of the Aaztec HQ. Mr Poweska climbed onto the bin which was held about 5ft up on a forklift truck, and started to empty it into the skip.
Mr Thewlis’s statement was read out by North Yorkshire coroner Jon Heath. “Piotr pushed the final panels forward into the skip. This took about six minutes.
“When we finished, I turned and started to get back into the truck to lower the waste box. At this point I saw the front end rise about an inch and drop back.
“I shouted to Piotr to keep still, just as the box tipped and slid backwards with Piotr in it.
“As far as I can remember the box hit the floor and did a somersault, with Piotr hitting feet first and rolling with it.
“This caused him to bang his head in a whiplash motion.”
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Mr Thewlis added about that day: “Piotr and I were having some banter and chatting away, and did not stop to consider any aspects of safety of what we were doing. We were just getting the job done.”
Mr Thewlis rushed over to find his friend was conscious, but his eyes weren’t focused and he was moaning.
He was taken to Harrogate Hospital. A doctor there said Mr Poweska appeared disorientated and had bruising and a laceration to his head. A CT scan revealed a bleed around the brain.
He was transferred to Leeds General Infirmary. Mr Robert Corns, a consultant neurosurgeon at LGI, said after a period he gradually improved and was transferred to his local hospital, York, for further rehabilitation.
Found by his friend
On the day he died in June 2019, Mr Poweska, a joiner who came to England from his native Poland in 2006, was found by his friend Ewa Kochancyzk.
She used to live at the same address, and called to collect her post at 7.30am. When she knocked and got no response, she let herself in to the communal area and saw Mr Poweska’s door was unlocked.
Ms Kochancyzk found her friend face down on his bed. He was cold and unresponsive. She called 999 and Yorkshire Ambulance paramedics confirmed he was dead at 8.02am.
Police attended and said there were no suspicious circumstances.
Consultant neuropathologist at Leeds Teaching Hospital Azzam Ishmail told the inquest he examined Mr Poweska’s brain after his death.
He said the left temporal lobe of the brain was “damaged significantly”.
“In my opinion, the defect was significant enough to cause repeated seizures,” he said, adding: “His death can be attributed to the trauma”.
The inquest jury recorded a conclusion of accidental death.
They concluded that the cause of Mr Poweska’s death was sudden unexplained death in epilepsy, caused by a traumatic brain injury in 2014.
Safety review
Production director at Aaztec Associates Matthew Welborn submitted a statement about the accident and its aftermath.
He said Mr Thewlis and Mr Poweska had received forklift truck training. “We had thought it would have been evident to them from their training that no one should ever be lifted onto the forks of a truck whilst inside an unstable load as the offcuts bin would have been.”
It was clear an unsafe system had been employed in this case. The company’s health and safety manager reviewed the task, undertaking a risk assessment and preparing a new safe systems working document.
They also ordered a specially adapted skip which removed the need for manual handling.
No action was taken against the company by the Health and Safety Executive.