{"id":18028,"date":"2019-05-13T11:08:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T10:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=18028"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:56:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:56:30","slug":"heathrow-airside-safety-campaign-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=18028","title":{"rendered":"‘Completely preventable’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Though they lived an ocean apart, brothers John and Mark Coles were close.<\/p>\n

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Mark, a businessman who lives in New York City, often flies to London for work or leisure, and John was always there to greet him.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJohn worked in Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport,\u00c2\u00a0 so he was always the first person I saw after I landed and the last person I saw on my way back to New York,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Mark told UniteLive.<\/p>\n

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John, a senior aircraft technician for British Airways, had worked at Heathrow since he started as an apprentice at 16.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHe absolutely loved his job,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Mark said.<\/p>\n

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But on Valentine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day last year, just another day on the job would for John end in tragedy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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A Heathrow airside safety vehicle, driving well above the speed limit of 40 mph, collided with John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s van at a Terminal 5 vehicle crossing. The side impact of the collision badly damaged \u00c2\u00a0John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s van and the internal injuries he sustained required treatment at a hospital.<\/p>\n

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John lay in his crushed vehicle for over 30 minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 With no medical centre at Heathrow, he was taken on a longboard to a very small gate room used by his colleagues to dispatch aircraft.<\/p>\n

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Despite John complaining of chest pains, difficulty breathing and a large cut on his head, Heathrow failed to communicate the extent of the incident and injuries to the ambulance service. It took more than an hour for an ambulance to reach him, by which time he had gone into cardiac arrest from internal bleeding. He died at the age of 44.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJohn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accident was completely preventable \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it should not have happened,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Mark, who is now working with Unite in campaigning for an independent inquiry into airside safety at Heathrow.<\/p>\n

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Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign, which launched last Friday (May 10), is aiming to make sure that what happened to John never happens to any Heathrow airport worker ever again.<\/p>\n

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Reports into John\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death point to failings with Heathrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safety systems and emergency medical response procedures, which could have been a factor in his death.<\/p>\n

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Unite reps at Heathrow report that airside safety at Heathrow is currently not \u00e2\u20ac\u0098fit for purpose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 resulting in minor accidents and frequent near misses. Heathrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own safety alerts<\/a> reveal frequent issues including several involving vehicles.<\/p>\n

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Mark, who spoke alongside Unite regional secretary Peter Kavanagh, Labour MP for Slough Tan Dhesi and Samantha Hemsley of Thompsons Solicitors, said he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s motivated to campaign for airside safety in memory of his brother.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJohn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death turned my family\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life upside down \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we lost a loving brother, uncle and son. And for my parents, who are in their late seventies and who John lived with, they lost a carer too. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had to do the unthinkable \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bury their own child.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Mark\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ineffable grief has fuelled his anger at the lack of sufficient airside safety at the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest airport.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHeathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world \u00e2\u20ac\u201c its 75,000 workers serve about 220,000 passengers each and every day. How does an airport that has the equivalent population of a small city and by its nature have a higher probability of medical emergencies not have a dedicated airside ambulance service?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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At the moment, Heathrow must share London ambulances with the local community \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in contrast to, for example, Dublin airport, a much smaller airport, that has its own airside ambulances.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark has also called for an overhaul of airside safety procedures to ensure that those procedures\u00c2\u00a0 are followed to the letter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and that the workforce is listened to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHeathrow has not followed up with airside employees reporting serious safety concerns they have been involved in, including near misses involving the kind of vehicles that killed my brother,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark has appealed to Heathrow to improve safety at the airport for passengers and workers alike, but so far the airport\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response he believes amounts to nothing more than mere window-dressing<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAll they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done so far is put up safety posters and bumper stickers, develop meaningless taglines like \u00e2\u20ac\u0098We are Safety\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and do a bit of social media outreach,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t action; this is like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Mark hopes Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign will be the catalyst for real change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJohn himself was a trade union rep and I strongly believe that a safety campaign like the one we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve launched is what he would have wanted,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bTrade unions are the most important vehicle for advocating workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights. In a climate where health and safety isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t taken seriously, trade unions standing up for employees are absolutely necessary.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite regional officer Peter Kavanagh called on Heathrow Airport to act.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is essential that Heathrow agrees to an independent inquiry in order to secure the support of all workers operating at the airport,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWithout an independent inquiry whose findings are swiftly acted on, there is a genuine prospect of further serious accidents at the airport.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNo one should be asked to go to work and put themselves into a potentially dangerous situation.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though they lived an ocean apart, brothers John and Mark Coles were close.   Mark, a businessman who lives in New York City, often flies to London for work or leisure, and John was always there to greet him.   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bJohn worked in Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport,\u00c2\u00a0 so he was always the first person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[125,111],"wps_subtitle":"Grieving brother of Heathrow employee killed at work joins Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call for airside safety inquiry","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25291,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18028\/revisions\/25291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}