By PAUL YANDALL
A South Auckland man was decapitated when the lift he was working on accidentally began moving and caught him between floors.
The 50-year-old electrician was installing the lift in a newly built apartment block on Shelly Beach Rd in Herne Bay when the accident happened about 11.45 am
yesterday.
He was one of two people working on top of the lift carriage when it began moving without warning.
It is believed the man was trapped on the first floor of the two-storey apartment building as the lift was travelling upwards.
His workmate, a lift engineer, alerted the ambulance service but the man died instantly.
The pair were working for lift company National Fluid Power, based in East Tamaki.
One of the owners of the business, Clive Snell, said the dead man was an experienced electrician who also worked as the company's contracts manager.
Neither Mr Snell nor the police would name the man until his relatives had been notified.
"He was always on site for us overseeing jobs. He has worked for us for 15 years," said Mr Snell. "It's very upsetting for us."
The company had been contracted by the building's developers, New Market Developments, of Takapuna, to install the lift.
The company's owner, Richard Pottkamper, said the death was shocking, but he did not want to comment further pending an Occupational Safety and Health investigation.
Senior Sergeant Greg Cramer said the man's body was removed from the building yesterday afternoon.
Up to a dozen police and OSH officers were examining the scene.
"Without going into details, all I can say is that it is very horrific."
He said it was not known why the lift had started, although there was a suspicion that an electrical fault might have caused it.
The Auckland regional manager for OSH, John Forrest, said any workplace death was sad, "but this was a particularly gruesome one".
He said the service had two officers working on the incident and electrical and lift engineers would be brought in to help decide what had happened.
One of the areas being investigated was whether negligence - by the workmen or their employers - had contributed to the accident.
