An inquest into the death of a soldier on an Army training march on a hot day heard how another infantryman collapsed with a “suspected heat injury” an hour before.
Scots Corporal Joshua Hoole, 26, from Ecclefechan , Dumfresshire, collapsed during an annual fitness test at Brecon, Wales, on the morning of July 19, 2016.
Yesterday, senior coroner Louise Hunt asked Colonel Christopher Wright for his opinion on the collapse of Lance Corporal George Knight about an hour before Joshua went down.
Col Wright replied: “I had come to the conclusion it should have been treated as a suspected heat injury.”
The inquest was also told by Professor George Havenith, a heat stress and heat strain expert from Loughborough University , that the wet bulb globe test meter used to measure temperature produced an “erroneous” low result, as it was in the shade of the base’s gym building.
Asked on a balance of probabilities whether the march should have gone ahead at all, he added it should not.
Asked if Joshua would be alive if the exercise had never been run or been stopped at 8.28am, he replied: “Yes.”
The inquest continues.
