TEEN DIED PLAYING ‘KNOCK KNOCK GINGER’
A TEENAGER was running away from a house he had knocked on during a game of “knock knock ginger” with friends when he collided with a taxi and suffered unsurvivable injuries, an inquest heard yesterday.
Morgan Ackerman, 16, was playing the game with two of his young friends on Barry Road, Barry, at around 10.30pm on January 3 this year when he ran out into the road into the path of the vehicle.
An inquest into the keen sportsman’s death heard he banged on the window of a house before running down the pavement followed by his friends before veering out into the road between two parked cars.
One of his friends described seeing the oncoming Skoda Octavia taxi and trying to warn Morgan by shouting out.
In a statement read out at Cardiff Coroner’s Court, the other boy said: “I saw Morgan start to run out into the road.
“I could now see there was a white and black taxi coming towards Morgan.
“The only reason we were running up the road was because Morgan had done knock knock ginger on a house
“(The other boy) tried to warn him. He had not seen the taxi coming.”
Morgan was taken to hospital but was found to be deeply unconscious and suffering from a “devastating” brain injury, the inquest heard.
He died the next day at the University Hospital Wales, Cardiff.
The taxi driver, Anthony John Hewlett, said he was travelling at about 20mph prior to the accident and that there was plenty of street lighting.
In a statement given to police and read out at the inquest, he said: “All of a sudden a person shot out from the left-hand side from between parked cars.
“I braked but had no chance of not colliding with this person.”
Mr Hewlett said the person hit his windscreen and he got out of his taxi, realised it was a young boy and called 999.
He added: “It all happened so quickly.”
Pc Gareth Davies, forensic collision investigator for South Wales Police, said the taxi had no defects and was steering well, nor were there any defects with the road surface that could have contributed to the accident.
He said, based on CCTV footage, the Skoda was travelling at between 22-25mph and that Mr Hewlett “reacted very quickly” after Morgan ran out into the road and came to a stop two seconds after he would have first seen the teen and that there “nothing he could have done to avoid this collision”.
Answering a question from Morgan’s mother Leanne Sweet about mobile phones and other devices, Pc Davies said: “There is no suggestion that he was doing anything else that has delayed his actions.”
In her statement, which was read out, Mrs Sweet described how she spoke to Morgan a few minutes before his death and he told her “he was just around the corner and would be home soon”.
She said: “He seemed normal and asked what was for dinner.”
The inquest heard Morgan’s sister received a text message shortly afterwards to say that he had been knocked over and the family went to the scene.
Mrs Sweet said her son was an all-round sportsman who was “happy with life” and had a “massive circle of friends and was loved by everyone who knew him”.
Recording a conclusion of accidental death, coroner Philip Spinney said: “Morgan and his friends had been walking along Barry Road and the evidence reveals that they had been tapping on windows and doors as a group they were running up the road.
“Morgan was in front... he collided with the car and received unsurvivable injuries.”