On Friday 23 August 2013 21:34 Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Tim Watts wrote:

I don't think he was expecting the whole wall to collapse. He probably
thought he'd be taking it down one block at a time.

I'm sure, but there's plenty of scope for much lesser accidents in a
situation like this, and you'd still want to keep kids away. Even a
chisel or hammer falling off a low wall onto someone is going to hurt.


I was not expecting a piece of PVC to fracture off a but of gutter I was
power sawing and fly past my eye. I'd cut enough before without incident.

The point being, we make risk assessments on the basis of what we know and
expect. Just very occasionally it is possible, even without gross negligence
to be very very unlucky.

This is not in the same league as the bloke taking the wall out from under a
concrete roof.

I took the top 3ft off a brick gate pillar the other day - one brock at a
time with a bolster. It went without incident - although I could clearly see
that the immediate area was clear due to the position I was in.

Whilst it is easy in hindsight to say "waht a dick", looking at the wall, it
was quite likely he was expecting to pop the blocks off one at a time
without much fuss.



--
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