Engineer’s arm chopped off by wind turbine while working on it

A wind turbine engineer who sued for more than £1 million after his arm was sliced off has won his compensation fight at the High Court.

Darren Hoadley, 42, was checking the bearings in the mechanism which spins the blades when the rotating machine sliced through his arm ‘like a guillotine’.

The turbine, which was on the Rentel offshore wind farm in the North Sea, ‘traumatically amputated his left arm’ in June 2018.

Mr Hoadley, who was nicknamed ‘Mr Safety’ by his colleagues due to his reputation for diligence, sued his employer, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy Ltd, over the gruesome accident.

He claimed it could have been avoided had he known that the power source which was slowly turning the turbine at the time had not been deactivated.

Judge Richard Davison found the company mostly to blame, meaning Mr Hoadley, from Norfolk, has won the right to a massive compensation payout.

Lawyers say is likely to be more than £1 million, but the exact amount he will receive will be decided at a later date and reduced by a third after Judge Davison found Mr Hoadley was partly to blame.

The life-changing accident occurred while the engineer was checking parts in a cramped ‘nacelle’ pod attached to the top of the turbine’s upright body and close to the hub around which the blades turned, the court heard.

He had reached his arm through a hole in the turbine brake disc to check a series of safety pins and was horrified when he realised that the turbine was rotating slowly under power and that his arm had become stuck.

Mr Hoadley himself described the horror of knowing he was going to lose his limb, saying in evidence: ‘I could easily see the lock from a hole in the disc, so I proceeded to check the lock by placing my left arm through the hole and check the lock.

‘It was fine, but then I realised I could not move my arm. I then realised the disc was still moving slowly and I was going to lose my arm.’

Describing the accident, the judge said: ‘Upon completion of the check, he could not retrieve his arm and he realised that the generator was moving, and he had no way to stop it.

‘What then happened was that the stationary single blade mounting tool, immediately behind the brake disc, acted as a guillotine which traumatically amputated his left arm.’

The judge praised his ‘courage and presence of mind’ in being able to get out of the dark and cramped confines of the pod immediately after his injury.

‘The key features of the accident are that the claimant thought that the brake disc was locked and immobilised and that the power was off,’ he said.

‘He therefore thought he was safe in what he was doing, but both assumptions were incorrect.

‘He did not realise his mistake until his arm was already trapped and it was too late to do anything about it.’

The judge ruled that Siemens Gamesa were at fault because other technicians working in the pod had previously turned on the power without properly alerting colleagues.

‘The technicians who were the last to leave the nacelle in the morning removed the rotor locks and reactivated the power without reinstating the chain and warning sign which were intended to and would have alerted incoming staff to the fact that the system was energised,’ he said.

‘They also left the door to the nacelle open…which contributed to the false impression that the power was isolated and which had the unfortunate side effect of obscuring vision of the control panel for the slow speed turning device.’

The accident was also contributed to by the silent mechanism of the devices in the pod, which lulled Mr Hoadley into a false sense of security, plus his own inattention on the fateful day, he added.

‘On this occasion, he failed to live up to his reputation as “Mr Safety”,’ the judge noted.

‘He failed to involve his installation lead. He failed to plan.

‘He was working alone when he should not have been – and having a radio with him was no answer to that when there was no one nearby to summon and no one to act as a second pair of eyes over what he was doing.

‘Lastly, he assumed what he should not have assumed without checking.’

Mr Hoadley was judged one-third to blame for his injuries, which means he will recover two thirds of whatever damages award is ultimately allocated him by the courts.

The assessment of damages will be heard at a later date, with Mr Hoadley claiming more than £1m for his life-changing injuries.

As well as praising Mr Hoadley for his coolness and courage in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the judge commended him for his resilience in ‘adapting and coping’ since the accident.

After having his arm cut off, Mr Hoadley feared the job was now beyond him and said: ‘For a long time I felt as though part of my identity was missing.

‘This haunted me for a while and I struggled with the uncertainty that flooded my future.’

But after fitting a prosthetic arm and intensive on-the-job support, he was able to get back to work, undergoing a series of gruelling safety and competence tests, including sea survival, helicopter rescue and working at heights.

During his sea survival training, Mr Hoadley had to get back up a ladder for the first time in four years and technicians had to adapt the hook on his artificial limb to help him cope.

At the end of his ruling, the judge also commended Siemens Gamesa for their post-accident reaction and for ushering in ‘immediate and effective reforms to their equipment and procedures’.

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