A coroners inquest has today (1 May 2013) recorded a verdict that a man died as a result of an accident on Forest Lane in Harrogate.
Ali Yalcin aged 36yrs of Lowther Street, York was working as a security guard on an area of land that had a number of teepee tents that were being used for Christmas parties.
On 21 Dec 2012 his work colleague had arrived on the site at around 8am to commence the day security of the site. He was unable to find Mr Yalcin who had been working the night shift.
Yalcin’s work colleague then phoned the manager and continued to search the site for Mr Ali when he noticed the mobile phone of Mr Ali ringing on the parcel shelf of his car. The windows were misted up and at first it was thought that Mr Ali was sleeping on the rear seat of the vehicle. An attempt was made to wake Mr Ali, but to no avail.
The emergency services had been called and the first responder upon arrival broke a window to the vehicle. The first responder checked the man, but found that he was unresponsive.
Within the foot well of the vehicle was a bucket of charcoal, which the coroner believed Mr Ali had taken into the car with him.
The charcoal caused a build of Carbon monoxide within the confined space of the vehicle and slowly poisoned the man as he slept. The post-mortem toxicology results confirmed a high concentration of the toxin within the man’s body.
At that time of year the weather was particularly cold, with temperatures well below freezing. The teepee tents had fire pits as a main source of heating for events and there were sufficient logs made available to the security staff to use the fire pits at night to keep warm. There was also an electric generator and fire to heat areas of the tent.
There was no evidence of any other parties being involved and it will never be clear why Mr Ali took charcoal into the vehicle, other than a dreadful misjudgement on his part.
[sam id=”4″ codes=”true”]
