Inquest into the Death of Shaun McBRIDE

28y · Male·drowning

A 28-year-old scaffolder died by drowning after falling from a cantilevered scaffold under a loading jetty while dismantling it. The scaffold collapsed when he inadvertently struck the brace wedge instead of the transom wedge during dismantling—the correct wedge could not be seen from his position. His fall arrest system was not attached to the correct load-bearing rosette on the standard, so it did not arrest his fall. The 12 kg of tools and safety equipment he wore caused rapid descent to the 15.7 m deep seabed. Clinical lessons: strict compliance with 100% hook-on procedures to correct attachment points is critical; workers over water that are weighed down with safety gear should wear personal flotation devices as an additional layer of protection; high-risk technical procedures require clear procedures, training, supervision, and risk assessment; design features that increase hazard (unsighted hammer strikes at close wedge spacing) should be addressed through engineering controls.