The death of 26-year-old who was crushed between a bale and a wall on a Cumbria farm has been determined to be an accident.
Nathan Atkinson died on the farm in Lowick in December 2019.
Cockermouth Coroner’s Court heard Atkinson lived around a mile from the farm and frequently helped out on the farm after he had finished shifts working at a local boarding school.
According to the Westmorland Gazette, the inquest heard how, on the day he died, Atkinson’s partner became concerned after he failed to respond to a message to see if he had delivered a parcel for her.
On calling the school where he worked, she learned that he had not turned up to work that day.
Searching the farm, she eventually found him crushed between a bale and the wall of the hayshed.
The Westmorland Gazette reports that as Atkinson was on his own when the incident happened, the exact circumstances leading up to his death are unknown.
A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Executive confirmed the bales were stacked in accordance with HSE guidance.
Assistant coroner for Cumbria Craig Smith accepted the cause of death offered by the pathologist of was asphyxia and brain stem haemorrhage and compression of the thorax.
It was concluded Atkinson’s death was an accident.
