Girl fatally injured after fall from trailer

A young girl was fatally injured when she hit her head off the road after falling from a tractor-trailer as she tried to stop her hat from blowing away.

Sophie Pearson, 9, lived for another five days following the accident on a road near the family farm at Coolbally, Clough, Ballacolla, Co Laois, on July 13 last year, but never recovered from severe head injuries suffered in the fall.

Her father David Pearson told Dublin Coroner’s Court he was transferring bales of hay that day and Sophie and her brothers Scott, 10, and Ben, 7, had begged him to be taken for a “spin” on the trailer. The bales were being loaded from a field half a mile away.