Worker was ‘bleeding from the eyes, mouth and ears’ when paramedics arrived
A Quebec coroner has confirmed that a 41-year-old farmer died last year after a 3,000-pound manure spreader fell on him while he was checking a repair underneath the machine, according to a report.
The coroner's office released its findings into the death of Étienne Lessard, a co-owner of a farm in Saint-Honoré-de-Shenley, five months after Quebec's workplace safety regulator, the CNESST, issued its own findings on the same incident, Ma Beauce reported.
Coroner Jean-François Bertrand concluded that Lessard died of multiple injuries after the spreader fell while he was positioned beneath it to inspect a repair on the lift tie rod on the left side of the machine's three-point hitch, per the report obtained by Ma Beauce.
According to the report, witnesses at the scene called emergency services immediately and freed Lessard from underneath the spreader before paramedics arrived. He was in cardiac arrest by the time they reached him, and bystanders began cardiopulmonary resuscitation while waiting for help.
Paramedics arrived roughly ten minutes after the emergency call was placed. According to the coroner's report, they documented that the farm co-owner was "bleeding from the eyes, mouth and ears." His death was confirmed remotely about 45 minutes later.
Toxicology results
The coroner's report also addressed toxicology findings, as reported by Ma Beauce. Testing of Lessard's biological fluids "did not reveal the presence of usual and abused drugs," the report states, and his blood alcohol level was undetectable. The findings rule out impairment as a contributing factor in the fatality.
Bertrand's report does not introduce new safety recommendations. Instead, it points back to the CNESST's earlier investigation, which attributed the equipment failure to excessive wear on the threads of the lower threaded rod and the clevis connecting the left lift tie rod to the tractor's three-point hitch, noted Ma Beauce.
The CNESST also flagged the absence of any support for the spreader other than the tractor's hitch itself as a factor in the collapse.
