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UK's offshore safety regulator determined that rig worker died vecause floor grating had been removed
The UK's offshore safety regulator has determined that the rig worker Lee Hulse, 32, from Aberdeen, died on Nov 14, 2025 aboard the 'Valaris 121', because a floor grating had been removed for cleaning, The rig was operating off the coast of Aberdeen. On the day of the accident, cleaning occurred in the cab of the port side aft crane, and unspecified personnel removed a floor grating in order to perform the task. This exposed the fragile external floor of the cab, and the grating was not put back in place, according to the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE). On the morning, Lee Hulse stepped on the unprotected cab floor. It failed under his feet and he fell through it, plunging more than 80 feet to his death. The agency issued operator Valaris a citation for allegedly failing to "make an assessment of the risks to the health and safety" of employees during the cleaning activity. The notice added new information to the public record on the nature of the casualty, but it was not the final word: the broader HSE investigation was still in progress. It is the second time that a missing deck grating has been potentially implicated in a fatality aboard the 'Valaris 121'. In Jan 2023, the worker Jason Thomas disappeared from the rig while it was under tow. A dislodged polymer grating was found in an inspection after the incident, exposing employees to a risk to their safety by tripping on the displaced grating and/or falling through the subsequent hole in the decking area," inspectors with HSE wrote in an advisory to the operator. At the time, a union official expressed the view that the missing grating was connected with Thomas' disappearance, though no formal investigative finding to that effect has yet been published. The HSE findings on gratings confirmed that the fears were fully verified. The unnion was told early on that it had appeared that Mr. Thomas had gone through a gap in the gratings, the RMT offshore union official Jake Molloy said after the accident.
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