Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
The BBC's Julian Fowler says the authorities are trying to establish what caused the accident
The father of a boy who died after becoming overcome by slurry tank gases at a farm in County Antrim remains critically ill in hospital.
Eight-year-old Robert Christie was airlifted to hospital in Belfast from the farm near Dunloy on Saturday, but doctors were unable to resuscitate him.
His 52-year-old father, also called Robert, was helping out on the farm on Ballynaloob Road, near his own.
Both were overcome by poisonous fumes as they were mixing slurry.
It is understood they were found by a postman on Saturday afternoon.
Dangerous gasesThe Health and Safety Executive is investigating.
A police spokesman said: "At the request of family members, police will not be releasing any further details at this time."
Barclay Bell, the deputy president of the Ulster Farmers Union, said dangerous gases build up in the slurry tanks.
These gases are lethal; you can't smell them and you can't see them, they're heavier than air so they stay down low and people are effectively dead within a matter of seconds if they're affected by the gas.
A slurry tank is where the waste material from animals is collected and it tends to be underneath the building, so if you have a barn that cattle are in, the material's collected under the building, it falls through the floor and is collected in winter when the cattle are indoors.
You then have to spread that material as slurry onto the land. To spread it you first have to agitate it or break it up so you can spread.
It's when you go through that process to agitate it that the gases are released.
The advice is that when you agitate slurry you stay out of the building until the gas dissipates.
But the problem is you don't actually know when the gas has dissipated, you can't smell it, you can't see it and people don't tend to use meters - there are no very reliable meters widely available to detect this.
It's a fairly normal operation on the farm.
"It's really a tank for holding all the waste products from animals produced during the winter time," he said.
"It stays in these tanks maybe for a number of months and a lethal combination of gases build up, including methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and worst of all, probably, hydrogen sulphide."
DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr said: "It is deeply distressing to learn of yet another death near a slurry pit."
He added: "These accidents are tragic as they remind us of the real dangers the farming community face every day."
Sinn Féin assembly member Daithi McKay said: "Local people here are shocked at what has happened earlier today, as are the farming community across north Antrim."
TUV assembly member Jim Allister said: "The dangers of farming are ever present and when they claim lives, then it comes home to us all just how vulnerable farming families can be."
Ulster Unionist assembly member Robin Swann said: ""It is becoming clear this is another terrible slurry tank accident. The fact remains that slurry is an ever present danger on most farms."
It is the latest in a long line of fatal accidents involving slurry tanks on Northern Ireland's farms.
The most high profile incident was in September 2012, when Ulster rugby player Nevin Spence, his father Noel and brother Graham died after they were overcome by fumes on their family farm.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Father of slurry death boy critical
Dengan url
http://cangkirtehhangat.blogspot.com/2014/06/father-of-slurry-death-boy-critical.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Father of slurry death boy critical
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Father of slurry death boy critical
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar