A 14-year-old boy named locally as Donal English Hayden has died and his 15-year-old brother was injured after a tractor drawing a trailer overturned at a farm in Co Carlow yesterday.
The teenagers were helping a neighbouring farmer in a sugar beet field when the trailer overturned near Ballon at about 10.30am.
The dead boy is understood to have been pinned under the trailer. He was rushed with his brother to St Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, where he died later. He was due to return to secondary school today.
His brother is recovering in hospital.
Talented
Local parish priest
Fr Brendan Howard
said last night Donal was “a very talented young man” who came from a respectable family who were involved in the GAA, athletics and “everything like that”. He added: “He had a great future ahead of him . . . as far as I recall he got a gold medal last year in the community games.”
Freak accident
Fr Howard said the owners of the farm where the teenagers were helping were very health-and-safety conscious but the farmer hit a dyke and his trailer overturned. “It was a freak accident.”
He said his heart went out to Donal’s family, who brought up their children in the best way. “You couldn’t get a more respectable family.”
The boy’s father, Matthew, ran in the last local elections in the South Carlow area. His mother Noeleen (née English), is a nurse in the Sacred Heart Hospital, Carlow. Donal was one of seven children.
The Garda and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) are investigating the incident. Inspectors from the HSA visited the scene.