Forth Bridge workman fell to his death after taking illicit shortcut

A WORKMAN fell to his death from the Forth Bridge after taking an unauthorised route through the “criss-crossed steelwork” of the famous landmark, an inquiry has heard.

Shotblaster Robert MacDonald fell from a walkway while taking a shortcut to a work area as a part of the final crew of painters stripping and painting the bridge. He plunged 150ft before landing on scaffolding near the railway tracks in January 2010.

A fatal accident inquiry into his death was told yesterday that Mr MacDonald, 52, from Harthill, North Lanarkshire, was one of a night gang of four men working for sub-contractor Thyssen Krup Palmers intended to put an end to the constant painting and repainting of the structure.

Choking back tears, chargehand Joe McGinley, 56, said on the evening that Mr MacDonald died, they had expected to be working near the top of the centre cantilever of the bridge, where they had been working the night before, and where they had left their gear. But when they arrived, they were told they would be working on another section.

Mr McGinley said the correct procedure would have been to get a hoist up to the section where they had been working, collect their gear, then go back down in the hoist, along a walkway at track level, before climbing 19 ladders to get to the new section.

Mr McGinley, who said he was paid “an extra 50p an hour” for being the chargehand, agreed with depute fiscal Carrie MacFarlane that it was he who had suggested taking a short cut, and that the other men had agreed. He said: “We didn’t like the 19 ladders. It was just a sore climb.”

He said that after collecting their gear and smoking a cigarette outside the workers’ bothy near the top, he led the way “in the pitch black” as the group climbed over scaffolding poles and down a ladder leading to a sloping walkway through the “criss-crossed steel” of the bridge.

When Miss MacFarlane asked the purpose of the scaffolding poles they had climbed over, he replied: “It was so you shouldn’t have gone down an unauthorised route.”

He said as he made his way down the walkway ahead of the other three men, he discovered that part of the floor was missing and wire handrails had rusted away.

He said at one point the route required them to climb over an exposed section of one of the bridge’s main legs, high in the air. “There were stanchions there for handrails where wire had been put through, but it must have decayed over the years,” he said.

Further on, he discovered that two sections of the floor grating of the walkway were missing, so he balanced sideways across the angle-iron on which the grating would have sat. He said: “I maybe should have shouted back [to tell the other men], but I saw the gap so I thought they would as well.”

Finally, he had to kick a hole in plastic sheeting encapsulating the area where they were to be working, as there was no door in from the direction they had come.

He said he had not considered turning back. “I was that close, I just wanted to get on with the job,” he said.

Once inside the work area Mr McGinley said he had started sorting out the gear they needed when he heard another of the men, Mick Muir, shout from outside that Mr MacDonald had died. He said: “I heard Mick shouting ‘he is dead he is dead’. It was like a roar.”

He said he had never been aware of any pressure from his employers to take shortcuts, or work faster, and added that he would have taken no notice if there had been.

At the weekend, Mr MacDonald’s daughter Clare, 29, from Glasgow, recalled how her father, whom she described as “Rod Stewart’s number one Scottish fan”, would raise cash for charities by auctioning off Rod Stewart memorabilia.

The inquiry, before Sheriff Ian Dunbar at Dunfermline Sheriff Court, continues.