A FARMER was crushed to death by a cauliflower picker while trying to help a younger colleague in a field, an inquest heard.
Aleksej Kleinov was trying to help hitch a mini picker to a tractor, when the arm of the machinery lifted and struck his dead and neck.
A two-day inquest into the 34-year-old’s death found that he should not have been standing in between the mini packer and the tractor on April 11, 2024.
Kleinov was working on a cauliflower field in Trispen, outside Truro, on the day of his death.
While working, he noticed a younger and less experience colleague struggling to hitch up a mini packer to her tractor.
The court was told today that he tried to help hook the mini packer to the tractor when the machine’s arms lifted and hit Kleinov.
The farmer managed to pull himself out from between the machines – despite having suffered fatal injuries to his skull and neck.
After walking a few steps from the scene, he collapsed to the ground as colleagues rushed to his side.
Emergency services were called to the scene but were unable to revive Kleinov due to the severity of his injuries and was declared deceased at the scene.
A Home Office registered pathologist, Dr Amanda Jeffery, gave a medical cause of death as head and neck injuries.
A toxicology examination also resulted negative for alcohol and/or drugs.
The field is owned by Southern England Farms Ltd (SEF) – one of the largest vegetable growers in Cornwall.
Gordon Stokes, the farm manager at SEF, said: “He put himself in harm’s way by doing what he did and asking someone to lift the arms when the gap was going to close.
“My aim has always been to ensure that everyone goes home safely at the end of each day. This accident had a profound effect on everyone at SEF.”
Strokes told the inquest that safety and training procedures have been tightened at SEF farms since the incident, and mini packers are no longer being used.
Alexander Ashen, the Health and Safety Executive inspector who attended the farm on the day, told the inquest that normal hitching procedures had been “an incentive to cut corners”.
He went on to say that some workers had been hitching machinery from in between the trailer and tractor rather than from the side.
Ashen added that training and safety procedures provided by SEF should have been enough so that workers do not hitch up mini packers in the way Kleinov did.
He told the inquest: “The training should have been enough for Mr Kleinov not to do what he did, especially without anyone else in the cab of the tractor at the same time.
“Something should have told him in his head that what he was doing was inherently dangerous.”
The HSE inspector told the hearing that he had contacted the manufacturer of the mini packer and then all the farms in England that use it.
He said: “I contacted each farm. They had all heard of this incident and they gave me assurances that a similar incident would not happen on their farms as they rig and de-rig from the side or hitch up to a tractor at the start of the season and it stays on the whole time.”
