Boy drowned after 'dare'

A SCHOOLBOY responding to a 'dare' to walk a pipe attached to a Leeds & Liverpool Canal bridge, fell and drowned.

Robbie Williamson, aged 11, attempting to walk across a pipe on Dugdale Bridge (126A) in Burnley, missed his footing and fell into the water, an inquest revealing that he struck his head on the canal bank as he fell face downwards into the water.

He later suffered a heart attack in hospital and died.

Others drowned

It was also revealed that children had for many years walked across the cast iron pipe attached to the bridge, even though others had fallen and drowned, the one before being in April last year, which prompted further attempts being made to stop children accessing the pipe.

The pipe that had been there for 110 years had shields installed at either end after the last death, but three boys including Robbie, who was the second to go across, managed to clamber around the shield to gain access to the pipe.

Nearing the end

The inquest was told that Robbie walked with his back to the wall but as he was nearing the end he slipped and fell, with the boys climbing off the bridge yelling for help with one of them running to find someone.

A person helped get Robbie from the water and called the emergency services with paramedics arriving and taking Robbie to the Royal Blackburn Hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma but suffered a cardiac arrest and died later that night.

It was shown he died from drowning and a head injury, with a cause of accidental death being recorded.