A heavy wooden sliding gate was mechanically defective when it fell and crushed a five-year-old girl outside her home, an inquest has heard.
Sienna Joyce died just weeks before her sixth birthday after the gate de-railed from its sliders and fell, trapping the child underneath.
“She was my life, the air that I breathed. We are devastated to have lost her but nothing will bring her back”.
“She was our little princess. She was such a girly girl, she loved to dress up, she loved her long curly hair,” the child’s father David Joyce Junior said, speaking after the inquest.
He went on: “She was a little character, she could light up a room and everyone loved her.”
Little Sienna was playing outside her home at The Ward, Ashbourne, Co Meath on June 27, 2016 when she came inside and spoke to her mother who was making sandwiches.
“She asked to use the bathroom, she was a very polite child like that,” her mother Maria Joyce said.
Her daughter took a sandwich back outside after using the bathroom. Mrs Joyce said she then heard ‘the loudest bang’ outside and saw her son trying to lift the gate.
“I ran and tried to lift it but I couldn’t. I screamed for help,” she said.
Her partner and his father were working down the yard when they heard her screams.
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Story Source: Breaking News
