A TREE which caused the death of man who was cutting it would have needed a specialist to make sure it fell in the right direction, the inquest into his death heard yesterday.
James Devin (57), White House, Monasterboice, Drogheda, died on November 8th while trying to cut the large conifer which was at least 10m (33ft) high.
Louth county coroner Ronan Maguire was told that the death was treated as an occupational accident by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).
Terry Hallahan, inspector with the HSA, gave evidence.
Mr Hallahan told Drogheda Coroners Court that a safety manager with Coíllte had visited the scene and decided that a “specialist felling technique” would have been needed to fell the tree in a particular direction.
The inquest also heard the tree had a heavy crown imbalance which would have resulted in it falling in the direction it did.
Ollie Smyth witnessed the accident and told gardaí he had been in the field beside where Mr Devin was working and he was watching him cut the tree.
He said Mr Devin cut one side of the tree and then went around to cut the other side. “All of a sudden, I saw the tree spin around and fall.”
He ran over to the tree and saw Mr Devin was caught between it and a stone wall with the tree lying horizontally across his back.
A postmortem found he died as a result of asphyxia due to the compression on him of the weight of the tree. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death.
He said the tragic accident seemed to have occurred mainly because there was an imbalance in the tree and it had fallen in an unexpected way. “It was an accident in the true sense of the word,” the coroner told the late Mr Devin’s family.