THE body of Hunter Quarries worker Ryan Messenger was taken from the Karuah site about 7 o’clock last night, almost 2 days after the accident that claimed the 25-year-old’s life.
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Hunter Quarries director Hilton Grugeon slammed the delay in retrieving the body of the young plant operator as ‘‘an extraordinary display of incompetence’’ on behalf of state government officials.
‘‘I am confident the company has done nothing wrong but there’s an investigation to go through and that should happen but there should also be an investigation into the incompetence displayed by the department of mines,’’ Mr Grugeon said.
‘‘It wasn’t the case this time but what if he had been hanging on to his life by a thread?’’
Mr Grugeon said state government mining inspectors handed control of the accident site back to the company about 4pm yesterday. By 5.15pm the excavator had been moved and secured in such a way to allow police rescue officers to reach Mr Messenger’s body.
The operation finished less than two hours later when an ambulance took the body from the site.
Mr Grugeon said there was nothing inherently dangerous or difficult about the retrieval operation.
The Newcastle Herald was refused entry to see the site by the company and has been unable to obtain comment from the inspectors.
‘‘The government’s mining inspectors took control of the site from the start on Tuesday morning and although we had a retrieval company ready to go they refused to allow that to happen,’’ Mr Grugeon said.
‘‘They brought one crane on, then a second, and then a third, and yet in all of that time nothing whatsoever happened.
‘‘They were very good at going through the books and looking at the paperwork but nobody they sent was competent or trained or able to do the job.’’
Mr Messenger was killed on Tuesday morning when the excavator he was operating rolled over as he was apparently trying to dislodge a large rock from the bucket of his machine.
The Herald has been told the excavator toppled over ‘‘like it was in slow motion’’ and at least one witness was expecting Mr Messenger to ‘‘climb out of the machine and dust himself off’’.
But it was not to be.
With family and workmates still gathered at the quarry until the end of the retrieval, the family issued a statement about Mr Messenger, praising a newly wed young man who worked with his step-father at the quarry.
‘‘Hunter Quarries has shown our families nothing but compassion and support in many ways,’’ Mr Messenger’s mother, Janelle Russell, said.
‘‘All the people whom work within the Hunter Group are treated as a big extended family and I cannot thank them enough for all of their support.’’
Ms Russell said her son was a butcher by trade who started at the quarry two years ago, working his way from being a labourer-driver to a leading hand.
FROM JANELLE RUSSELL, MOTHER OF RYAN MESSENGER
Being a parent whom has to lay their first born son to rest at the young age of 25 is going to be the
hardest thing I have ever had to endure in my life.
Ryan has always been the life of the room- he was always the class clown! He is loved lots by his sister Teara , his brother Ethan, step-brother Rob and his niece Shaffira.
Ryan loved life to the fullest but loved his wife Alexandra more! They married in February this year,
had built a home together and should have had a long loving life with each other. The kind of love
they have will live on forever. Alexandra and her family loved Ryan as much as his own family loved him!
Ryan was a real ‘mates mate’, he never left a mate behind and he has a great bunch of mates (brothers).
My heart will take a long time, if at all it does, to mend from the sudden passing of Ryan.
Both my husband Brian and my son Ryan work for Hunter Quarries. Ryan was a butcher by trade and went to work for Hunter Quarries 2 years ago, where he worked his way from being a labourer/driver to become a leading hand. He was excited to get this job where he learnt the right way to be the safe and experienced operator he had become.
I, as Ryan’s mother, would like to thank Hunter Quarries from the bottom of my very broken heart, for the utmost support and their willing to go out of their way to make us as comfortable as possible over the past few days. Hunter Quarries is not, from my point of view, at fault. This is a very sad
accident that has taken place and is just that- an accident- and nothing more. Hunter Quarries has shown our families nothing but compassion and support in many ways. All the people whom work within the Hunter Group are treated as a big extended family and I cannot thank them enough for all of their support.
