Irish woman becomes World Blind Water Ski Champion

WHEN Janet Gray, the World Blind Water Ski champion, trained in Florida, she challenged the professionals to try skiing blind using her black goggles.

The Co Down woman found very few takers. "They were absolutely

petrified. The few who tried it could hardly stand up. I was the only blind person in the school but I loved matching myself against the pros," she said.

Last year, Janet Gray,38, won the World Blind Water Skiing championship for the second time, earning gold medals in all three competitions slalom, tricks and jumps. The water skiers in McCormick's school in Florida never tire of asking how she can soar over the invisible ramps. "I tell them, 'If I could see it, do you think I'd do it?' "

Janet's father lost his sight when she was young and soon afterwards, her brother Ian also went blind. At 14, doctors discovered a problem with one of Janet's eyes. But several operations appeared to work and she completed her O and A levels to qualify as a life-saving teacher in a Belfast leisure centre.

"I was in the leisure centre one day and I went to supervise some equipment arriving. I dodged past a football team...A player was coming with his head down and he just knocked me out," she said. The collision badly damaged Janet's eye socket. Her vision deteriorated rapidly and she was blind within months. "I had a rare form of glaucoma but no one knew enough about it and the operations all went wrong. I was just 20 and my life ended for quite a while," she said.

She broke off her relationship with Paul Gray, her boyfriend since she was 17. "It was harder on him than me and I just didn't want to be a burden on him."

But Paul, a businessman, refused to give up and the pair were married a year later. One evening, Janet went to the lake to watch Paul water skiing. "I will never forget that day. Paul brought me skiing beside him and I loved it. Then I wanted to go on my own and I eventually did three laps of the lake."

Since then, she collected two World Blind Water Ski Championships,

European and Irish records and an MBE from Prince Charles. This year, she was named as the Irish Tatler Northern Ireland Woman of the Year. Janet's story is told in Do They Take Sugar, a documentary on Network 2 at 9.30pm tonight to mark Irish National Information Day on Disability.

School bus operator appeals 6,000 negligence action award

Donal Hickey

A SCHOOL bus operator told a court yesterday nobody ever suggested to him he should have an adult supervisor to oversee a group of four year olds on his bus.

At present, it is not compulsory to have supervisors or seat belts on school buses, but a new EU directive which is being drafted could change that.

At the Circuit Court in Tralee, Co Kerry, private bus contractor Jimmy O'Callaghan from Killarney appealed against a 6,000 award given to a young boy who had recently brought a negligence action against him in the Circuit Court for injuries sustained.

The court was told Thomas Kiely, then aged four, of 89 Forest Close, Killarney, received a one-inch laceration to his forehead after being pushed by another child at the back of Mr O'Callaghan's bus in December 2000, three months after starting school.

There had been jumping around and horseplay at the back of the bus by other children. The injured child had been sitting in his seat and was pushed forward. He still bears a slight scar.

Since the Circuit Court action, Mr O'Callaghan has withdrawn the bus which served junior infants at the Holy Cross primary school, Killarney, for an indefinite period.

After hearing lengthy evidence in the appeal yesterday, Mr Justice Geoghegan reserved his decision until the end of next month at earliest. Legal sources indicated if the decision is upheld, it would have repercussions for the owners of school buses who would have to provide seat belts and see that children are secured.