By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter<\/p>\n
*This article may be distressing for some readers.<\/p>\n
A little girl was sitting on a loose plywood platform on a quad bike when she fell into the path of a mower it was towing and was badly injured.<\/p>\n
Her father, who had been driving the bike, and another relative, rushed to the girl’s aid but she was already in a “dire condition” and died at the scene.<\/p>\n
Coroner Peter Ryan has released his inquest findings after investigating the 7-year-old girl’s death on a farm in Hawke’s Bay in March last year.<\/p>\n
His report comes with a warning to the rural community “of the dangers young children face while accompanying their parents as they carry out their everyday duties on the farm”.<\/p>\n
“The serious crash analyst has rightly pointed out that [the girl’s] death would not have occurred if she had not been riding on the quad bike while her father pulled a mower behind the bike,” Coroner Ryan said.<\/p>\n
“This death therefore was entirely preventable.”<\/p>\n
The name of the girl and all details which would identify her family have been permanently suppressed.<\/p>\n
Bike used to mow thistles<\/p>\n
Coroner Ryan said the girl lived with her parents on the farm and would often ride as a passenger on the bike as her father drove it around the property.<\/p>\n
On March 23, 2024, her father was using the quad bike to mow thistles in a paddock, with the girl sitting on a plywood platform across the back seat.<\/p>\n
She was wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet but had no other protective clothing.<\/p>\n
“At one point, as [the father] was driving in a straight line at around 5kmh, [the girl] fell backwards off the quad bike and was run over by the mower,” Coroner Ryan said.<\/p>\n
The father stopped the bike and lifted the mower off his daughter, helped by another family member who was nearby.<\/p>\n
The girl was in a “dire condition” and the two men did what they could to stem the bleeding from her wounds.<\/p>\n
Emergency services reached the rural property about 26 minutes after being called, and a paramedic assessed her and confirmed she had died.<\/p>\n
She had suffered “multiple injuries”.<\/p>\n
An investigation found nothing wrong with the bike, but the plywood tray on which the girl was sitting could be lifted about 12cm on the left side.<\/p>\n
A large cable tie holding the plywood on to the bike’s frame on that side had snapped.<\/p>\n
There were no handholds on the side of the frame and a warning label on the right mudguard of the bike said it should not be used to carry passengers.<\/p>\n
The girl had ridden on the bike frequently, but never before when the mower was attached and being operated.<\/p>\n
Bike may have hit rough ground<\/p>\n
The crash analyst considered that the girl probably fell backwards when the bike hit a rough patch of ground and the plywood board moved.<\/p>\n
The lack of a handhold on the left side of the frame meant she would not have been able to prevent herself from falling.<\/p>\n
“I appreciate children love to be involved with their parents, particularly working on farms, and that generally they do so in a safe environment,” Coroner Ryan said.<\/p>\n
“But a young child riding unrestrained on an inherently unstable vehicle such as a quad bike cannot be described as being in a safe environment.<\/p>\n
“I note there is no suggestion [the father] was driving the quad bike in a reckless manner; he was driving slowly and in a straight line.<\/p>\n
“Nevertheless, due to a combination of factors [the girl] fell from the bike,” the coroner said.<\/p>\n
“This demonstrates the inherent danger of allowing young children to ride as passengers on quad bikes being utilised to perform farming tasks.”<\/p>\n
In suppressing the family’s identities, Coroner Ryan cited evidence about how family members were struggling to come to terms with what had happened.<\/p>\n
He said it would be “unjust” for the family to suffer further serious distress, which would be likely to adversely affect their mental health, through the publication of their identities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter *This article may be distressing for some readers. A little girl was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-176161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}