A TEENAGER who died after being hit by a train at Stafford railway station was probably trying to find his way back to his hotel an inquest heard.
Adam Kennedy was a heat treatment technician and frequently worked away from home.
In August last year he was part of a group working on Rugeley power station and staying at the Abbey Hotel, in Lichfield Road, Stafford.
Towards the end of the contract the group went out into Stafford town centre to celebrate.
The hearing at Cannock coroner’s court heard at some stage during the evening the 18-year-old became separated from his colleagues and got lost.
The hearing was told he sent texts to his father David, who he lived with in Lincolnshire, who told him to get a taxi back to the hotel but he decided to try to find his way home.
Mr Kennedy’s friends described him as merry not drunk but coroner Andrew Haigh said: “His father believes he was drunk and it’s likely he was drunk. Why he was on the line is not clear. The likelihood is he was just trying to find his way back to the hotel.”
Malcolm Dobson, British Transport Police investigator, said a train driver who witnessed the incident said Mr Kennedy was on the line as a freight train approached behind him.
He told the court the driver of the oncoming train sounded his horn and applied the emergency brake but the train hit Mr Kennedy.
He was taken by ambulance to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire but died six days later.
Mr Dobson said: “This was a tragic accident. Adam consumed an unknown quantity of alcohol and became lost in Stafford before straying onto railway property.”
No post mortem was conducted and the court heard there were no toxicology tests because the hospital didn’t retain a blood sample as requested.
Recording a verdict of accidental death Mr Haigh said the cause of death was water on the brain, traumatic brain injury and multiple injuries.
“The likelihood is Adam mistook the sounding of the horn as coming from the stationary train. He wasn’t aware of that train (behind him) until it was too late.”
