A YOUNG Dolgellau man died after he was crushed by the arm of a hook lorry as he was inspecting a potential oil leak, an inquest has heard.

The inquest found that John Eric Lloyd, 23, suffered fatal crush injuries after failing to use a prop to support the hook arm while it was in a raised position on 14 August last year.

The incident happened at A&M Lloyd Plant and Tool Hire in Dolgellau, where John Eric, as he was affectionately called by his family and friends, worked as a lorry driver for his father, Alan Meirion Lloyd, who runs the business.

The former Ysgol y Gader pupil was with his sister, Sharon Elizabeth Lloyd, at the time of his death inspecting the hook arm of the lorry for an oil leak.

In a statement, which was read out to the jury at the inquest in Caernarfon, Miss Lloyd said: “My dad noticed the vehicle had a leak and he was going to take a look at it but he was called out on a job.

“John asked me to help him with it. He took the skip off the back and went underneath the hook arm to inspect the leak and it just suddenly came down on top of him.”

Miss Lloyd told the inquest that she had told her brother to get out from under the arm as she was concerned it wasn’t safe.

John Eric’s father, Mr Lloyd, told the hearing that he had reminded his son only a couple of months prior to the fatal incident to always use a prop when inspecting parts of the machinery.

Mr Lloyd told the jury that his son had operated this particular lorry several times before and that he’d never received any complaints from him or any other members of staff that there was a problem with it.

In a statement read out to the court he said: “I had spoken to John about always using a prop only a couple of months before this happened.

“I would always make sure to prop up any parts while we are carrying out any type of inspection on the vehicles, I just can’t understand why he didn’t do this. I gave him the advice and he seemed to take it in.”

Jamie Davies, a specialist inspector with the Health and Safety Executive, carried out an inspection on the hook lorry on 15 August last year.

During his investigation he found that the locking hooks on the vehicle were misaligned and that they were able to be placed in a position where they could be held together with friction but not fully locked into place.

Mr Davies said this could have meant the arm spontaneously fell on John Eric.

A separate investigation led by the Health and Safety Executive into the incident is also still ongoing.

The jury recorded a narrative verdict into John Eric Lloyd’s death.