[h=1]Heroic mum rushed to aid boy (10) hit in Dart accident[/h]
By Geraldine Gittens
Thursday December 08 2011
ONE heroic witness to a horrific Dart accident in which a boy was seriously injured has described how she rushed to help him as he lay helpless under the train.
Janice O'Leary (33), a mother-of-five from Balbriggan who is pictured above, came to the aid of 10-year-old Gary Burke when he told her he could not feel his legs after the accident at Howth Junction Station at 4.45pm on Tuesday.
She told the Herald: "I was coming in from Dublin city and a woman came into the carriage and pressed the emergency button and she said a child was after getting trapped under the train.
"A woman shouted, 'I'm a nurse' and she asked me to go down in the gap with her. I took off my jacket so she could put it under his head, and she asked for anyone on the platform to take off their jackets to keep him warm.
Blood
"I asked him his name and he said it was Gary, and he said, 'I was running along the platform and I had my hand on the train and I accidentally slipped down the gap'. He said, 'it was an accident. I can't feel my legs, are my legs OK?'
"I got the torch and when I saw his leg I thought it was a steel bar but it was his leg bone with the skin peeled off his leg. There was blood as well."
Gary was accompanied by his sister on the Howth junction platform and she was left distraught and in total shock while emergency services attended to him. "He asked, 'where's my sister?'
and I told him she was here. I just kept telling him, 'your legs are alright, everything's going to be ok'. He was totally in shock.
"He was screaming when they were taking him up through the gap between the train and platform," she added.
Janice said children often play on train platforms but do not realise the dangers, and she lost sleep after the incident.
She said: "Everyone was telling me fair play for going down to him but I didn't even think about it. I just wanted to climb down and keep him alert. I needed to keep him talking and stop him thinking of the pain."
hnews@herald.ie