AN INQUEST has heard how a three-year-old boy was crushed to death beneath the wheel of an eight-tonne dumper truck driven by his father.
Stephen O’Leary was standing on a platform beside his father, who was sitting in the driver seat of the truck, when it jerked violently from forward motion into reverse.
The force of the jolt threw the child over the side of the truck to the ground, where he was crushed beneath the front left wheel of the machine.
The accident took place at Inchirahilly, Crookstown, Co Cork, where landscaping works were taking place at the O’Leary family home on March 8th, 2008.
Mr O’Leary placed his son on the platform next to the driver’s seat of the truck. He fashioned a harness for him with his belt and had secured him to a railing on the machine.
However, the child freed himself from the makeshift seat belt and moved to the left side of his father where an electric switch for moving the vehicle from forward to reverse was located.
The dumper truck was moving out of the driveway and into the road when a sudden violent movement dislodged the boy, throwing him over the front left side of the machine. The young boy was rushed to Cork University Hospital in the back seat of a car and was carried in the arms of his father into the accident and emergency department at Cork University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster attributed the death to neck, chest and abdominal trauma consistent with being run over by a motorised vehicle.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death at yesterday’s inquest.