€700k for boy electrocuted after driving nail into ESB pole
A BOY who, at the age of ten, was electrocuted after he hammered a nail into an ESB pole while building a fort, has settled his case for damages for €700,000.
Kurt O’Callaghan, from Wexford town, suffered extensive burns to his head, eyes, neck, shoulder and chest from the electric shock he suffered during the accident.
The High Court, which was asked to approve the settlement, heard that his upper body was engulfed in fire.
The force of the electric charge threw him off the wall on which he was standing and onto the footpath, where his jacket caught fire.
A passing motorist pulled the burning jacket off him, while another motorist drove him straight to Wexford General Hospital. Kurt was in the intensive care unit of Crumlin Hospi- tal for five weeks after the accident, the court heard, and was not discharged until three months later.
He has undergone surgery already, the court heard, and his plastic surgeon wanted to carry out another operation. His long-range eyesight has been permanently affected, and he had become withdrawn since the accident.
Kurt, who will be 18 next month, had sued the ESB through his mother Denise O’Callaghan, following the accident on July 3, 2008.
His counsel, Michael Counihan SC, said: ‘Kurt had been playing with friends near his home in Wexford town. They were building a fort in a wooded area adjacent to a public housing estate, Brendan Corish (Gardens), very near where he lived.
‘There was a series of forts that young children were building in the area. The plaintiff was putting a sign on a pole... “Everybody else keep out” or some such.
‘He was nailing this to an ESB pole, with a 10 kilovolt voltage.
‘He was luckily blown off the pole but suffered very serious injuries.’
Mr Counihan said expert evidence from an ESB engineer would show that the high-velocity cables within the pole should have been shielded from the plaintiff by a metal guard for two to three metres from the ground.
But the court was told this pole was located next to a low wall, which Kurt had been able to climb, and hence he struck the pole above this metal guard. He said the engineer would have been ‘very critical’ that the pole was so close to the wall. It was also noted that there were 52 other nails in the pole, Mr Counihan said, from ‘other children, election posters, etc’.
Any one of these could have triggered the same accident, he suggested. Mr Justice Kevin Cross queried if it had been alleged that Kurt had been responsible for the accident, but added: ‘He was only ten.’
And Mr Counihan said Kurt could not recall any warning sign on the pole, indicating a possible danger. He said his client had made ‘an amazing recovery’ from the accident, but that the after-effects were significant.
The court heard that he is now working as a welder, and is about to begin an apprenticeship.
Judge Cross approved the sum of damages, adding: ‘Kurt has made a good recovery from a traumatic and frightening incident.’