AN INQUEST heard yesterday how a six-year-old girl died instantly when 11,000 volts of electricity passed through her after she touched an overhead electricity cable while climbing a tree near her home in Ballymagroarty, Derry city, last September.
Tia Anne Nagurski was described by her parents Natasha and Brian as “a little girl who could make a tree into an enchanted forest, fortress or climbing frame to see the cows in the next field”.
Northern Ireland’s senior coroner John L Leckey is to write to the Minister of Trade and Enterprise, Arlene Foster, asking her to “introduce as soon as possible” legislation relating to a defined safety zone between tree tops and electricity cables.
Mr Leckey said Tia’s superb climbing ability and her light build enabled her to reach the top of an elder tree which was described as “unclimbable” by Northern Ireland Electricity officials.
Roy Coulter of NIE told the inquest that tree lines close to electricity cables were inspected in a five-year cycle to determine if they should be pruned and that the elder which Tia was climbing had been inspected four months before her death. He said the recent wet and mild summers had accelerated tree growth and the elder was one of the fasting growing varieties of trees.
Mr Coulter said the tree had last been cut in September 2004. He accepted that there had been “an inadequate and insufficient amount of tree cutting”.
Dr James Lynas, a pathology registrar who carried out a postmortem examination on Tia’s body, said the electric current disrupted her rhythmic heart beat resulting in her instant death.
“The circumstances of her death are almost unprecedented in Northern Ireland. Electrocutions are quite rare. In the last two years there have been only two cases and over the last several decades there have been only 25 cases, mainly domestic or work-related electrocutions,” he said.
Tia’s parents said she often left notes under their pillow telling them how much she loved them. “We live every day with the disbelief that Tia went out to play yards from our back door only to come home in a white casket.”