A 17-month-old boy has died after a concrete wall collapsed on top of him while visiting the lambs on his grandfather’s land, an inquest heard yesterday.
Roan Robbie Butcher’s father Zach Butcher picked him up from nursery on April 5 last year and took him to see the animals at the family property in Mildenhall, Suffolk.
The lambs were in a big open-sided barn with small concrete walls about 3ft (1m) high creating individual pens – some of which had gate posts and gates attached.
Mr Butcher lifted Roan up and put him in a pen with the lambs, before he stepped over the wall and into the pen by himself, Suffolk Coroner’s Court was told.
An inquest into the death of Roan Robbie Butcher was held at Suffolk Coroner’s Court, Ipswich
But this dislodged the wall which then collapsed on top of Roan, causing him to suffer a catastrophic brain injury, reported the East Anglian Daily Times.
Mr Butcher ran with Roan to the home, where the emergency services were called. It was decided to take the boy to hospital, but he entered cardiac arrest on the way.
Paramedics then arrived and took him to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, but he had suffered an ‘irreversible’ head injury and died in A&E later that day.
The court heard Roan enjoyed seeing the lambs and would often visit them with his father – and that the family kept lambs more as a hobby, rather than running a farm.
Roan was takento Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge but died in A&E later the same day
Peter Stickley, a former Health and Safety Executive inspector, told the inquest that the wall’s integrity was likely to have been compromised because it had no gate attached – with a small amount of force therefore causing it to fall down.
But the expert also pointed out that people without a good understanding of construction would not be expected to anticipate the wall could have collapsed.
Mr Stickley said: ‘You wouldn’t know the wall would fail until you applied the right force at the right location. You might rock the wall at the top and think, that’s not sturdy – but you would only know that at the very last minute.’
Coroner Darren Stewart concluded that Roan died as the result of an accident.
