[Daily Mail] Charlotte Louise Conroy-Taylor, 45, died after bale fell on her at Beaumont Grange Farm in Morecambe, Lancashire. She had warned about the dangers of such an incident only months beforehand an inquest hears. The tragedy happened as she mucked out stables with her daughter Zara, 13.

Larger bales are harder to handle than smaller bales but compress the hay more tightly. This round bale is partially covered with net wrap, which is an alternative to twine. Photo: Wikipedia

A keen horsewoman died after being crushed by  a ‘precariously balanced’ hay bale just months after warning about the dangers  at a livery stable, an inquest heard today.

Charlotte Louise Conroy-Taylor, was killed  when the giant hay bale weighing a ton fell on her at the stables where she kept  her daughter Zara’s horse, Flash. Mrs Conroy-Taylor had kept the horse at  Beaumont Grange Farm, which has an equestrian centre with a riding school, for  several years.

But tragedy struck in May last year when Mrs  Conroy-Taylor, 45, went to the stables to help ‘muck out’ Zara’s horse after  returning from a family holiday. An inquest into her death at Preston  Coroner’s Court was told that Mrs Conroy-Taylor died almost instantly after  being struck by the hay bale covered in black plastic.

Giving evidence 13-year-old Zara told how her  mother had warned of an accident occurring with the hay bales prior to her  death. She said: ‘A few months before the accident  my mum said “I bet one day one of them is going to fall” because she wasn’t as  happy as she should have been with the way that they were stacked.

The girl said she went to the stables with  her mother every evening at around 5pm.

Mrs Conroy-Taylor, Youth Offending Team  manager at Lancashire County Council, would begin mucking out duties whilst Zara  rode her horse around the stables.

Zara said her mother suffered from a bad back  causing her to ‘hunch over’ meaning she preferred to get hay from a trough  within the stables rather than access the bales. However, on a number of occasions clients  were forced to access the hay bales as the trough ‘was more often than not  empty’.

She said: ‘We never opened a bale at the bottom of the stack and would know not to open one supporting the stack. It would make it unstable or fall it was common sense.’

On May 31 last year, the last time Zara saw  her mother alive was as she stood next to a stack of hay bales around five metres high. Preston and West Lancashire Coroner, James  Adeley said: ‘Zara went to muck out the horse and Charlotte went to collect some hay.

But after her mother left Zara heard a scream  a few moments later and found her mother on the floor with a hay bale near her  feet and another by her side.

‘Zara called for help but Charlotte had  already succumbed to her death.’ Zara held her mother’s hand and squeezed it  but Mrs Conroy-Taylor did not respond, the court heard……

Read the full story at The Daily Mail…..

Daily Mail
5th Sept, 2012

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