AN ELECTRICAN working at the Post House Hotel at Wrotham was killed by an electric charge that surged through his body, an inquest was told. Martin Rudland was installing a smoke alarm system in the roof on August 9 when his right forearm came into contact with a live wire.

A colleague who was with him, Christopher Richman, told the coroner: "I heard a slight gurgle." He said at first he thought Mr Rudland was playing a practical joke but then he climbed the stairs from the hotel corridor below and saw his colleague's head hanging through the trap door.

Mr Richman said: "I flashed a torch in his eyes and his pupils didn't dilate, so I shot out of there and ran for help."

Malcolm Ronan, a specialist inspector for the Health and Safety Executive, told the inquest that Mr Rudland, an experienced electrician, would not have deliberately come into contact with the live wire. He believed Mr Rudland knelt on a pipe in the poorly lit roofspace at the same time, causing the current to pass through him and create exit wounds on his left shin.

He said: "These burns would be typical of a severe electrical shock received at another part of the body and travelling to the pipe."

The wire that electrocuted Mr Rudland was one of four hanging free from the casing of a motorised valve, the inquest was told. The valve was part of a disused system originally installed to selectively heat the hotel's bedrooms.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate Mr Rudland, from Worthing, west Sussex, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at Maidstone Hospital.

Verdict: accidental death.