Van driverkilled by freakaccident

Colin Faulkner, 59, worked as an HGV repairman and was driving to a job in February when disaster struck.

Mr Faulkner was killed by a tool, a 75mm socket, which had been left in the road.

It was thrown up by the tyre of a lorry passing in the opposite direction and went through the van window.

The inquest heard the chain of events occurred in a split second, but it was long enough for the piece of metal to smash through the toughened glass of the van and hit Mr Faulkner on the side of his head, leaving him with a depressed fracture.

His Vauxhall Vivaro had travelled on at a slower speed before mounting a traffic island and coming to a stop when it hit a signpost in Whitwood, near Castleford. He died the next day.

Mr Faulkner was the victim of a “very tragic accident”, the inquest in Wakefield was told.

Calvin Stevens, supervisor at Crossroads, the company Mr Faulkner worked for, received a call asking if one of his drivers was all right as a van had been spotted and the driver appeared to be “slumped over the steering wheel”.

Mr Stevens found his injured colleague and stayed with him until paramedics arrived.

Coroner David Hinchliff recorded a verdict of accidental death.

Giving evidence, Keith Reyner, of the West Yorkshire Police Collision Investigation Unit, said the socket would have been propelled at about 30mph before hitting the van driver. He said: “The odds are just so unbelievable”.

The coroner described it as being “like a bullet in a gun”.

Mr Faulkner lived in Pontefract with his partner Janet Walker, 57, and the pair were due to marry in November.