Harrisons Story
Tuesday 27th June 2017 was a beautiful summer day; I was sat at my desk at work. I was excited for the future; I’d been in my new job for 4 weeks. Previously I’d worked school hours but now my 2 boys Cameron and Harrison were settled in secondary school it was the right time to earn some more money to be able to treat us and create more special memories. Around 4.30pm I received a call from my friend “Liz, you need to get to Crick, It’s Harrison and it’s bad!”
That morning I gave Harrison a hug and said, “I love you” he said it too, and he skipped out the back door to catch the school bus, I didn’t know it then, but that was to be the last time I saw my boy. He was just coming to the end of his first year of secondary school and was loving it. He settled in well, made lots of new friends and was well thought of by his teachers, even though he had a cheeky sense of humour. He always wanted to make others smile, and his friends were very special to him, as was his big brother Cameron who was 14. He played for the local football team since he was 6 years old and was turning out to be a skilled defender.
After that phone call, I never thought to ask anything else, I just ran to my car calling Harrisons Dad in blind panic relaying the words of my friend, and I drove, I didn’t even know where I was driving to. The memory of that drive is a blur, apart from a fire engine over taking me and I just knew it was heading to Crick.
I arrived in the village, and it became apparent I didn’t need to ask where to go, there was I think 2 police cars, an ambulance, and a fire engine with a huge group of people standing around, kids crying and a police cordon at the entrance to a bridle path I’d never been down. Someone said something about a train, and I couldn’t imagine where a train would be (I’d lived in Crick for 15 years and I just couldn’t understand). I begged the police officer to tell me something, I begged him to let me past, but he obviously had strict instructions that no-one was allowed past, and he had no information.
After what felt like an eternity, I saw three officers in the distance walking back up the path, but no sign of Harrison. I was allowed with Cameron and his dad to walk towards them, through the cordon and when we reached them they said they were 90% sure Harrison was dead – for a split second I had hope and I asked why only 90% and I will never forget the gut wrenching feeling when they gave their response, they could only be 90% sure as he couldn’t be identified.
I later learned that on that day, on the school bus coming home Harrison and a group of friends decided they would go home, get changed, and go on a bike ride. However, Harrison’s bike had a puncture, so he ran alongside them with his football. He had an Xbox and he loved being on that, but I always encouraged him to get outside in the fresh air and have adventures as often as possible.
The boys ventured down a bridle path and stopped under a bridge for a snack, and to kick the ball about, it accidently ended up on the bridge, so Harrison followed by his friends climbed over what the boys described as a small wooden fence, walked up the embankment and straight onto the trackside, where a wagon was parked. They thought the wagon they found there was abandoned and had no clue of how dangerous that area was. Harrison climbed up the rungs on the side of the wagon in search of his ball, he found it and he went to throw the ball back down to his friends when 25 thousand volts of electricity arced from the overhead cables, threw him off the top of the wagon and electrocuted him.
The devastation that this has caused is immense, and talking about it is very painful, but if I’m able to share Harrisons story with as many people as I can, in the hope that it might save someone else from being injured or killed, then that’s what I’ll do.