A port worker is critically ill in hospital after being crushed between a 40-tonne barge and a pier at Denton Wharf in Kent.

Michael Russell, who has worked at the Gravesend wharf for 20 years, was mooring the boat when the accident happened.

“He was doing what he does every day,” his wife Natalie told the News Shopper. “It was just an accident. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Russell was said to be in a “critical but stable” condition today.

The accident happened at 4.50pm on Friday 18 January.

The Health and Safety Executive and the Port of London Authority are investigating the accident.