Tragic: Social worker Heidi Chalkley died after a ‘moment of silliness’
A mother was crushed to death by faulty automatic garage doors in front of horrified friends after clinging to the closing shutters in an ‘act of silliness’.
Heidi Chalkley, 40, was dragged into the mechanism after grabbing onto the metal shutters with both hands as they rose up.
Her arms got trapped and she was pulled into the rolling metal shutters and crushed to death, an inquest heard.
But tragically a report found she might have survived had the safety detectors on the garage doors been working properly.
The social worker, from Cambridgeshire, with a friend who lived at the four-storey apartment block at the time of the tragedy.
The pair were making their way out of the car park at the bottom of the building when Mrs Chalkley pressed the button to open the garage and grabbed onto the moving shutter ‘in a moment of silliness’.
Coroner’s officer Paul Garnell said at the time of the incident that Mrs Chalkley was ‘pulled into the mechanism’ after grabbing hold of the rolling metal door.
At an earlier hearing he said Mr Garnell : ‘They (Mrs Chalkley and her friend) were going out of the exit via the car park.
‘She had pressed the button to operate it and in the process of the shutter going up in an act of silliness she reached up and held on to the shutter.
‘She was meant to drop down but her arms got caught and the shutters pulled her up into the mechanism where it caused death immediately.
‘Members of the public tried to come to her aid but it was unsuccessful.’
A pre-inquest review at Huntingdon Coroner’s Court on yesterday was told how the safety sensors were faulty and Mrs Chalkley’s arms became trapped immediately – leading to her death shortly after.
Unsafe: A report found that Mrs Chalkley may have survived had the safety sensors on the garage doors beneath the apartment block in Cambridge (pictured) been working
Desperate: The coroner heard how emergency services and members of the public desperately tried to save her
It heard how she might have survived had the automatic shutter been working properly, but that she died at the scene of multiple injuries after getting trapped and being lifted off the ground by her arms.
The review heard how members of the public as well as her friend desperately tried in vain to save her but she passed away almost immediately after, in August 2016.
Pictured: The social worker leaves behind one child and a husband
The pre-inquest heard on Wednesday from Paul Arnold, a specialist electrical inspector with the Health and Safety Executive, which found that the detectors on the shutter doors had not be ‘configured’ correctly.
In his report, he stated that it was ‘unlikely Mrs Chalkley would have sustained fatal injuries’ if the garage door was working properly, the Cambridge News reported this week.
An HSE investigation is ongoing and a decision on whether to bring a criminal case against housing firm Luminus – the owners of the Ruth Bagnall Court block of flats – is yet to be made.
Coroner Sean Horstead, reading from an HSE report, stated that it was found that ‘if high-level detectors had been connected to a particular terminal, the gate would have stopped’.
The pre-inquest heard how the shutter door system was taken away, examined and replaced after the incident.
A full inquest in front of a jury is to be held in October.
Patrol: Police and fire crews outside the block of flats where the tragedy unfolded in August 2016