Youngstown ‘ashamed’ over child’s accident

7-year-old lost part of finger trying to replace village storm sewer cover

by Larry Austin
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, December 10, 2005

Village of Youngstown officials are shamefaced after learning a 7-year-old child lost part of a finger in an accident with a village storm sewer cover.

Ann Johnston of the village told the trustees during the public comment portion of their monthly meeting that the day after Thanksgiving her 7-year-old grandson lost part of his middle finger in an accident on Oak Street.

The child and his 11-year-old cousin were playing near Oak Street when they noticed a displaced storm sewer cover. “He and his cousin were back there playing,” Johnston said. “They saw it partially off. They’re 7 and 11. They thought they could put it back on.”

Instead, the cover fell on the child’s hand, trapping his fingers. In an effort to free his hand, the child damaged the end of two fingers. Doctors were able to reattach the index finger, Johnston said, but the middle finger was lost up to the first joint.

Johnston said she was later told by a DPW worker that the storm sewer covers have been off before.

“Up to that point, we’re thinking it’s an accident, and now we’re thinking it’s negligence,” Johnston told the board.

“I made a public announcement in my church on the Sunday after the accident asking the people in this village to be the eyes and ears for this village, and when they see something wrong, please call. And now I’m finding out that my DPW didn’t even do something,” she said.

“My complaint is that this has been going on and nobody has done anything about it,” Johnston said.

The board as a whole was not told of the problem until just before the meeting. Johnston was further upset that the incident did not merit mention in the monthly Department of Public Works report provided to the trustees, but instead included such activities as road salting, streetlight repair, leaf pickup, and vehicle maintenance.

Immediately after the incident, Johnston called Village Trustee Tony Collard, a former employee in the DPW, who responded quickly to the problem. Collard said the storm sewers’ covers are not spot-welded shut because workers may need access. The weight of the cover prevents its removal.

“Generally speaking, they don’t lock them in. They figure they’re very heavy and they’re very hard to get off,” Collard said. “That particular one also had a locking mechanism on it, but it was not locked in. It was ajar.”

“How it became ajar, I don’t know,” he said. “In the 21 years that I was there, I don’t remember it being continually ajar.”

Collard said he received help from two DPW employees, and locking the cover back on still took 10 minutes.

Mayor Neil Riordan expressed the board’s sorrow and apology for the incident.

“A, we’ve got to prevent this from ever happening again. As you said, certainly it was preventable,” Riordan said. “B, we’d like to sit down with the family just to see what we can do to do better by you in this regard. The insensitivity or the appearance of it is just horrendous.”

Riordan promised that the other such covers would be locked down and secured so that no other child would be injured.

“We’re ashamed, shocked,” Riordan said. “As a board, we didn’t know about it. We were never notified by anyone. After we get by the shame and the shock of it, we’ve got to take a responsibility to see that it does not happen to anyone again.”

Asked if he was upset with the DPW, Riordan said, “You could say that’s a fact, yes. We’ll address that tomorrow.”

“We should have at least known about it so we could sensibly act with the family, and we did not,” Riordan said.