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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Ryan Fahey

Brit stonemason killed on Australian building site after being crushed by falling bricks

A Brit working abroad as a stonemason died after being crushed by "several tonnes" of scaffolding and bricks on Friday.

Alistair Bidmead, originally from the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, was working on the façade of a high school in Sydney, Australia when the tragedy took place.

Despite the best efforts of the New South Wales ambulance service, he could not be resuscitated.

Inspector Michael Corlis told 9News : "His injuries were [such] he could not be resuscitated ... unfortunately there was nothing we could do."

At the time, Adam Dewberry from NSW Fire and Rescue said it was a "complex operation" to recover the body.

Some of his workmates were left traumatised by the horrific accident, but thankfully children were kept away from the site.

It's been reported that his colleagues watched on as the façade broke loose from the school before falling on him at around 11am.

It took a crane five hours to remove the piles of masonry and rubble piled on Mr Bidmead's body.

Mr Bidmead was a classically trained stonemason who had set up a business in Sydney working on heritage sites.

His business, Bidmead & Co, had been operating for around 16 years in the UK and Australia.

On his business social media pages, he said he is a stoneworker "born and bred in the south West of the UK".

His LinkedIn profile explains how he studied the trade extensively at professional industry institutions in the UK.

Sydney's department of education and the school are still to comment.

Just days ago a scaffolder was left in intensive care after a freak trampoline accident left him paralysed from the chest down.

Rob Harcourt, 37, suffered a cardiac arrest in hospital and had major surgery after doctors found fluid in his brain following the freak accident.

TeessideLive reported the scaffolder, who is described as a "massive joker", was at a friend's house when he tripped in the garden, falling onto a trampoline.

He suffered a "catastrophic" injury having dislocated his neck in the fall and kinked his spinal cord - with doctors saying he will likely be permanently paralysed from the chest down.

Friends have set up a fundraising page to support his partner Jade Higgins and her children while Rob battles a heartbreaking run of setbacks in hospital.

The hard-worker had taken on extra shifts as a scaffolder and friends say he had been working seven days a week to support his family as the cost of living crisis tightened purse strings.

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