Student, 21, died after he ‘slipped using weight machine at gym and dropped 65kg bar on his head’

A STUDENT died after he slipped and dropped a 65kg bar on his head while using a weight machine at the gym, an inquest heard.

Mohammed Farraj was working out at the University of East Anglia gym when the horror unfolded.

The 21-year-old had been using an aerobic step to perform calf raises while on a piece of weight-lifting equipment called a Smith machine.

CCTV showed Mohammed slipping off the step, which caused a horizontal 65kg bar bell to drop and “force his neck to the ground”.

An inquest heard a safety feature on the machine was a set of adjustable stops, which “should be set to the highest position possible” to stop the weight bar.

But these had been left in the “very lowest position” from a person who had used the machine before Mohammed.

Gym-goer Dr Trey Koev said he had been “less than two metres away” from the aspiring doctor during the tragedy in October last year.

He said he saw the student slip on the plastic aerobic step before the “bar carrying the weight came down” – resulting in a “loud bang”.

Dr Koev explained Mohammed “struggled to his feet very rapidly then tumbled”.

Dr Damian Laba was using the bench press when he heard a bang, “stood up and turned round and saw Mohammed collapsing on the floor”.

The consultant anaesthetist at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital said he “saw blood coming out of (Mohammed's) nose and mouth”.

Norfolk assistant coroner Johanna Thompson ruled Mohammed's death as an accident.

She said that “safety stops on the equipment hadn't been appropriately adjusted prior to” him performing his calf raise exercises.

The coroner added: “He used a step aerobic block to stand on. In doing so he slipped, causing the weight he had been lifting to fall onto him.

“This resulted in him sustaining a fatal head injury.”

Benjamin Price, head of sports operations at UEA Sportspark, told the court a warning is now in place about the stops on the weight machine following Mohammed's death.

In a tribute, the student's dad Hashim Farraj told the inquest how his son “loved life” and was training for an Ironman event.

He said he grew up as part of a boxing club and “took his fitness and his health very seriously”.