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Asbestos from railway caused man’s mesothelioma

9th August 2006 - A FORMER coach fitter died of mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos during his employment at the rail works, an inquest has heard.

Kenneth Probets died on April 4, a year after being diagnosed with the industrial disease.

A coroner's inquest into his death this week heard that Mr Probets started work as an apprentice coach fitter with GWR in 1941, aged 15.

He was called up by the Army a year later, serving in the medical corps.

Reading from a statement written before Mr Probets' death, Wiltshire and Swindon coroner David Masters said Mr Probets returned to the Swindon workshops in 1948.

"He began working in the Number Seven Shop restoring internal fittings," he said. "In doing so, he encountered asbestos powder.

"Coach fitters would mix sacks of asbestos and apply it in the coaches."

Mr Masters said Mr Probets was later exposed to more asbestos when refitting coaches in Number 24 Shop in the 1950s.

Mr Probets was made redundant in 1963 but returned to the workshops in 1977 to work for British Rail.

"He was employed to remove asbestos from coaches," Mr Masters said.

"He does say by this time I was aware there was some danger in handling asbestos but not so much as to cause death'.

"That was information given by colleagues, not by warnings.

"He had not been exposed to asbestos in any other employment."

Mr Probets went for tests in Oxford last year after complaining of the beginnings of a cough.

He was found to have mesothelioma, a diagnosis confirmed by pathologist Dr Laurence John, who conducted a post mortem examination on Mr Probets.

"He saw a tumour in his right lung," Mr Masters said.

"I find the injury causing death was mesothelioma.

"He was exposed to asbestos and asbestos dust in his employment by British Rail and Great Western Railway."

Speaking after the inquest, Mr Probets' wife Gwen said her husband had been diagnosed with the disease when he was 78 and he died when he was 79.

"He was so fit and active until it happened," she said.