Shear drop:
Lambs rescued after 40ft fall into old mineshaft
JOE Adams and wife Cathy cradle one of two lambs rescued by firefighters after becoming trapped 40 feet down a disused mineshaft on the couple’s Co Antrim farm. “It’s a miracle they’re alive,” said Joe. “The first wee boy had nothing to eat for four days and he still lived. He’s doing the very best and has moved into the family home. The other is skipping around as if nothing happened.”
THE silence of the lambs suggested that this tale would not have a happy ending.
You’re unlikely to hear such creatures, however, when they are trapped 40 feet down a disused mineshaft.
It certainly isn’t the normal emergency that three fire engines are called out to attend.
But take a bow, those officers from Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, who raced out to Rathkenny in Co Antrim to save farmer Joe Adams’ two lambs from a dreadful fate.
Speaking about the dramatic rescue, Joe (31) recalled: “When the first lamb went missing from our field last Tuesday I thought a fox must have got it.
“Then, when another one went missing on Friday evening, I knew something unusual was going on because there was no way a fox would come along in the middle of the day. I immediately thought that second lamb was stuck down a hole somewhere, so my wife, sister and I started combing the fields.”
For two hours Joe, his wife Cathy (31), a lecturer at Greenmount, and sister Gayle Williams (26), a physiotherapist, went searching for the missing newborns.
“We couldn’t find anything... then as Cathy was heading towards the gate she put her foot down what we believed was a hole,” said Joe, who has up to 350 lambs on the farm.
“When I pulled away the grass I saw that an old concrete lid had been covering up the shaft.
“Over the years it had obviously corroded away and there was a wee opening in the middle of it — just enough to swallow up something as small as a lamb. That’s when I realised that the two wee boys must have fallen down into it.”
Remarkably, the lambs — both just between one week and 10 days old — came through their ordeal unscathed after the fire officers arrived for something that was a lot different to rescuing a cat from a tree.
In the end it took them just 10 minutes to pull the young animals out of the darkness — and to discover they still had a spring in their step.
“It’s actually a miracle they’re still alive,” said Joe.
“The first wee boy had nothing to eat for four days and he still lived.
“He’s doing the very best and we’re feeding him by bottle. He’s actually moved into the family home!
“The other one is back out to his mother. He’s skipping around the field as if nothing had happened so there’s obviously nothing wrong with it.”
On a more serious note, Joe said there had been nothing to indicate the mineshaft was there, which could have been fatal for anyone unlucky enough to have fallen down it.
“It was only when I removed the grass that I saw a 40 foot drop,” he said.
“If you or me had fallen 40ft we would have been dead.
“The shaft wasn’t even straight down. There were jagged edges on the sides of it.
“I have no idea how those lambs got to the bottom unscathed.”
Joe, who along with his brother Alan (25), helps his parents run the farm, said they had since learned there were a number of disused mineshafts in the Rathkenny area, between Ballymena and Cushendall.
He added he would probably keep the two little survivors “for sentimental reasons”.
And after what they have been through, how could anyone let them go?
‘It’s actually a miracle they’re still alive. The first wee boy had nothing to eat for four days... he’s moved into the family home now’