By Martin Graham, Christine Lavelle & Amanda MacMillan
A WORKMAN was killed when a dumper truck overturned on the site of a new £86 million bottling factory in Fife today despite valiant attempts by a police officer to revive him.
The officer attempted to administer CPR to the worker after the horror accident at drinks giant Diageo’s plant at Banbeath Road but he was declared dead at the scene at around 12.50pm.
Health and Safety Executive investigators were called in to establish exactly how the accident happened. Early indications suggested it was the driver of the vehicle who was killed.
His details were not being released until next of kin had been informed but he was understood to have been a sub-contractor.
A spokesman for Fife police said: “It would appear that the dead man was the driver of the vehicle which overturned.
“We are continuing to investigate the death.”
Probe
The overall building project is managed by construction firm Rok who closed the site down immediately as a full probe was launched.
A spokesperson for Rok said: “Everyone at Rok would like to express deepest sympathy to the family of our colleague who died in this tragic accident.
“We have taken immediate steps to close the site and will be providing support to any member of the team affected by this sad news.
“We would like to thank the outstanding police officers who administered CPR.
“We will now be working with the Police, Procurator Fiscal and Health and Safety Executive so the circumstances surrounding this tragic accident can be ascertained.”
Closure
Diageo’s plant at Banbeath survived a jobs cull which saw the closure of the company’s facilities at Kilmarnock and Glasgow Port Dundas last year.
The company is investing £86 million pounds to expand the Leven plant, creating 400 new jobs and expanding capacity to 30 million cases a year.
Some 150 have been employed in the construction phase creating a new bottling hall, roads, drainage and infrastructure at the Leven site.
Diageo said they were fully aware of the incident.
A spokesman said: “We can confirm an incident took place this afternoon on the construction site for our new bottling hall at Leven has resulted in a fatality.
“Our thoughts are with the family at this very difficult time.”
The Scottish Ambulance Service confirmed that an ambulance crew attended the scene following an emergency call at 12.50pm, but had been unable to do anything to help save the worker.
