A coroner has found that an elderly man who died after falling from a ladder while attempting to put up a sunshade on his roof should have hired someone else to do the job.
Ronald James Wright, 81, passed away in hospital in February after the incident at his Mowbray home a month earlier.
Coroner Olivia McTaggart said Wright was using a 173cm A-frame aluminium ladder to put up the sunshade on January 24 when the top rung gave way.
She said Wright was working at a height of 2.8m and “had not taken steps” to properly secure the feet of the ladder or have another person present.
“As he was working on the ladder at the height of the roof, the ladder overbalanced when he attempted to obtain a foothold on the top rung,” McTaggart said.
“The top rung displayed a partially erased sign cautioning the user of the ladder to not stand on that rung.”
McTaggart said Wright fell to the concrete patio below and was found conscious, in pain and bleeding from the head shortly after by his partner.
He was taken to Launceston General Hospital with multiple injuries, including skull fractures, brain contusions, a subdural haematoma, subarachnoid haemorrhage, a fracture of the right humerus and a pelvic fracture.
He was airlifted to the Royal Hobart Hospital for specialist intensive care treatment and remained there for 12 days, but his recovery was complicated by delirium.
His condition deteriorated on February 4 due to a pulmonary thromboembolism and he passed away the next day.
McTaggart said it was “inadvisable” for Wright to work at a height from a ladder at 81 years of age, particularly without using it safely.
“Over recent years, Coroners have emphasised in numerous findings that older males using ladders unsafely have resulted in preventable deaths,” she said.
“Tragically, Mr Wright’s death is another such case.”
