Horrific details have emerged after an elderly man in Melbourne, Australia, was crushed to death in a car wash.
The 73-year-old man died of his injuries in the hospital three days after the incident on November 25, 2019.
Two years after the incident, however, Chevron Australia Downstream Fuels Pty Ltd, which operates the car wash, was charged by WorkSafe Victoria over four alleged breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, The Mirror detailed.
Earlier this week, the matter was heard at the Melbourne Magistrate's Court when witnesses were called to give evidence.
Harrowing details of the incident were outlined in court documents, which explained how Athanasios Papageorgiou entered the carwash to purchase the ticket with the access code. He then returned to his car and drove the vehicle towards the car wash area and entered the code on the keypad, per 7News.
He then drove his car inside, but the car wash did not start. He then got out of his vehicle and walked back to the keypad to try the code again. As he returned to his car, however, the wash cycle had begun. Papageorgiou's car door became stuck, trapping him between the door and his car. Court documents revealed how he was left "screaming and unable to move".
Pietrina Di Noto was next in line for the car wash when saw the incident as it happened. She was one of the witnesses who recounted it to the court this week, recalling: "He saw the machine move and started to run."
Di Noto explained that the water had started flowing from the car wash as Papageorgiou desperately tried to re-enter the front seat of his vehicle. "I thought 'oh no, please get into the back seat'," she told the court.
According to 7News, Chevron - which owns and operates the carwash - consistently disputes it was the operator of the car wash at the time. "Safety is Chevron’s top priority, and although the incident occurred before Chevron took up retail operations in Australia, Chevron has been and will continue to co-operate fully with any investigations into the incident," they said in a statement.
However, the documents read in court claim that the company did not take reasonably practicable steps to eliminate risks - including a lack of signage and anti-collision bars. "It was reasonably practicable for Chevron to eliminate or reduce the risk by installing boom gates which would grant access to the wash bay only after a valid access code was entered," the court documents allege.
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