Man crushed to death by car as he tried to fix it, inquest hears

Carrow House.Picture: ANTONY KELLY (Image: Archant Norfolk 2016)

An inquest into his death was heard on Thursday at Norfolk Coroner's Court in Norwich.

Sarunas Masionis, 20, originally from Lithuania, was working on his Renault Scenic in his front garden in Thetford when it fell on him as he worked underneath it.

His partner found him and neighbour Bernard Philpott fetched his own jack to try to lift the weight before firefighters manually lifted the vehicle off him but the factory worker died at the scene.

Viktorija Galvanavskaite, who had been in a relationship with Mr Masionis for two years, said he had spoken to her about fixing the parking brake as he had an MOT due.

She said he went out to do it while she got ready for work on June 21 this year.

Ms Galvanavskaite looked out of the window and saw Mr Masionis 'dancing and being silly' at around 11am but when she checked on him later she got no response.

In a statement read at Thursday's inquest in Norwich, she said she saw his legs sticking out from under the car.

Ms Galvanavskaite tried to wriggle them then noticed he looked blue.

She said Mr Masionis had propped the car up with a tyre and a 'wood block with the jack on top'.

Emergency services attended but he was pronounced dead outside his home in Mingay Road at 12.08pm.

A post-mortem examination gave his medical cause of death as asphyxia due to fatal compression of the chest.

Norfolk's area coroner Yvonne Blake said: 'He was trying to do something on his car.

'He had jacked it up and was underneath it and the jack failed and the car fell down.'

She concluded Mr Masionis died by misadventure and told his partner, who attended the hearing: 'It must have been a horrible thing and I'm deeply sorry for you.'

His partner made no comment after the hearing.