A tragedy that highlighted farm dangers for our children
“Fully convinced he wasn’t in it, I decided that I’d go down one more turn, just to be certain, and whatever way my hand just turned, I caught his jumper. And I brought him up... and then the panic started.”
These are the words of Colm Higgins on the tragic circumstance of finding his young brother James in a soak pit.
James was only seven in 2008, when he drowned on the family farm in Co Offaly.
The boy’s father, Padraig Higgins, recently visited Ballyvongane National School at Coachford, Co Cork, to talk to the children there about the dangers that exist on our farms.
“My little boy James was a popular boy. Everyone loved him.
“And on our farm at home we worked away just like everyone else.
“There are a lot of dangers on a farm and many of them go unnoticed.
“We have sheds like every other farmer and when it rains, water coming off the sheds goes into a soak way.
“On the farm back in January 2008, we had dug a hole for a new soak way, the hole was about the size of a large table, it wasn’t too big.
“We dug it one day, but we didn’t fill it up with stones on that day, we left it open.
“A few days went by and we got some heavy downpours and that hole filled up with water.
“We have another farm that an uncle of mine left me, it’s about 14 miles away and when we used to work on that farm we’d all go there together.
“But on this particular day James didn’t come with us, as he was getting his first pair of glasses.
“Joan, my wife, took him to get his glasses, and when he came home, the first thing he wanted to do was to show his grandfather his new glasses.
“His grandfather lived at the other side of the farmyard, only about 60 metres away.
“James used to cross over and back through the farmyard several times a day.
“We never saw any danger in that.
“The nearby road was where we felt the danger was, not on our own farm.
“So about twenty minutes later, Joan went out to see how he got on, but he hadn’t got there.
“She began to wonder where he could be. She went back to the house to see had he come back to his room, sometimes he did that. But he hadn’t, he was gone.
“When Joan came outside, we were just arriving home and so we all started to look for James.
“Then we happened to see his little green cap, a cap he used to be wearing all the time. The cap was floating around on the top of the soak way.
“Colm then got into the water and found James. Little James had drowned.
“And that was an awful shock to us, and that is why I’m here today.
“It doesn’t take a large amount of water to drown.
“Now there is one number that I want you all to remember here today,” Padraig told the pupils.
“It’s the number five.”
There were 30 people killed last year on Irish farms, but five of that 30 were your age. Five were under 13 years.”
“There were 30 families last year missing someone at the table at Christmas, but for five of them, Santa didn’t come.”
“Farming is a dangerous environment and as farms get busier over the coming years, the danger is all the greater.
“Being in a farmyard might be grand, but it’s only grand when you have an adult with you.
“A farmyard for a child should be a no-go area.”
As a parent myself, I can’t even imagine how heartbreaking it must be to lose a child in such tragic circumstances.
I think Padraig and his family must be commended for speaking out about their loss, in the hope that we all will learn an important lesson and make our farmyards a safer place.
n Recently Ballyvongane National School became the first school in the county to be awarded with a Cork County Council Water Safety Flag.
The Water Safety Officer with Cork County Council, Caroline Casey, told me about the new initiative.
“It’s really all about keeping children safe by highlighting dangers associated with water.
“When we visit a school, we spend a few hours with the students talking about the dangers associated with water, be it at the beach or indeed on the farm.
“We look at how to throw lifebuoys correctly, we look at what steps should be taken if you see an incident taking place.
“Really it’s all about how to make good decisions around water.
“Part of the programme involves theory work, but we also have some games with a water safety thread going through them.
“There is also a DVD that the children view and, when the overall programme is complete, we award the school with a Cork County Council Water Safety Flag.
Ballyvongane National School became the first in the county to get the flag.
If national or secondary schools wish to get involved, Caroline can be contacted at caroline.casey@corkcoco.ie by email.
John Leech, Irish Water Safety CEO, also spoke to the pupils at Ballyvongane National School.
“Every 10 years we lose about 30 children to drowning,” Mr Leech said, “and that is far too many.
“Each year on average, 135 people drown in Ireland. In 2013, the number was 91, so thankfully the numbers are on the decrease. But the key to being safe around water is education,” Mr Leech said.
And to combat such water related tragedies, Irish Water Safety have developed a course called PAWS (Primary Aquatic Water Safety).
This program is specifically tailored for primary schools, and after completing the PAWS programme pupils will have the ability to swim, interact with others in the water, and hopefully stay safe.
