Coal Processing Shortcut 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
I am unsure of the exact date - somewhere between 1998 and 2001! The story may have been covered by the Ayrshire post, based in Nile Court, Ayr, or the local Cumnock paper, based in Ayr Road, Cumnock.
The location is an opencast coal mining site near a village called Muirkirk. This is a run down coal mining village in the middle of now-where in Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland.
At the time of this incident I was in the Police, stationed at Cumnock, which covers Muirkirk.
Although I did not attend this incident, I was on duty at the time and got all the details from my colleagues who did attend.
A male worker had responsibility for carrying out cleaning and maintenance procedures on some sort of automated coal sorter machine. The machine basically takes in coal on a conveyor belt and it is pushed through/sized by a series of heavy rollers.
The maintenance required that the machine be stopped and a metal grate preventing a person being carried in by the conveyor required to be lifted to gain access to the machine. There was a safety cut out which meant if the grate was opened the machine would cut off. The worker could then crawl in and do whatever needed to be done.
The machine was normally switched off at 5pm prompt, after which the maintenance would be carried out.
This meant that this nominee would work on until about 5:20 or so. On this night however, he had a party to attend, and wanted to clear off bang on 5pm.
The solution - hotwire the safety switch on the grate and crawl in with the machine still running.
Of course, natural laws being as they are the nominee was caught by the machinery and dragged head first into the rollers, crushing his skull and killing him instantly. Submitted on 10/31/2002
Submitted by:
Mike Calvert
Reference:
1998-2001, Muirkirk, Scotland
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