By Aaron Curtis. From Greece Post. Originally posted: July 6, 2015. Original Article.
An accident on a dairy farm in Wayne County early Sunday evening took the life of a 5-year-old boy who was killed after being struck by a tractor that was operated by his mother.
The accident took place at Corner View Dairy’s farm on Lind Road in Galen, while Irene Martin was going about her typical routine of feeding the farm’s cattle, according to Glenn Martin, the young boy’s uncle.
“He was running around with an electrical scooter and he had scooted in front of the tire,” Glenn Martin said on Monday while standing several dozen yards away from the barn where the incident unfolded less than 24 hours earlier.
The boy is believed to have become distracted, and his mother, who was towing a large feeder trailer, backed into the 5-year-old, Glenn Martin said.
At approximately 6:45 p.m. Sunday, the child was pronounced dead at the scene by the Wayne County Coroner’s Office, according to a release from the New York State Police in Lyons.
Late Monday morning, several members of the family were present at the dairy farm — a somber mood was palpable among the group, contrasting with the warm and sunny day.
The boy, identified as Gabriel Martin, resided on the farm property.
“She’s blaming herself,” Glenn Martin said about the victim’s mother. “Hopefully she can work through it.”
He described Gabriel as an “always happy 5-year-old.”
“He was a happy boy, very happy,” Glenn Martin said. “He was everybody’s little buddy.”
He added that the 5-year-old add much to the farm, which has operated on the property for decades.
“The family is working through it,” Glenn Martin said.
The incident remains under investigation by members of the State Police.
This accident comes less than a week after a 4-year-old Perry boy was transported by Mercy Flight to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Buffalo after an accident involving a small four-wheel ATV.
According to Wyoming County sheriff’s deputies, on July 2, the boy’s grandmother went looking for the boy and found him in the pond not breathing. His ATV was recovered in about seven feet of water.
At approximately 2 p.m., Wyoming County Sheriff’s Office Dispatcher Nick Wright received a call that the boy was not breathing and that family members were performing CPR.
Emergency personnel arrived on the scene and continues CPR while enroute to the emergency room at the Wyoming County Community Hospital, before being moved to Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Buffalo.
The boy, who has not been identified, was listed in critical condition at the hospital the night of the incident, but Messenger Post Newspartner News 10NBC reported Monday that he had died.
With the summer months upon us, Wayne County Sheriff Barry Virts stressed that similar incidents can be prevented by practicing safety first.
“When you have kids that are operating machinery, whether it be an ATV, a snowmobile, a minibike, they should always wear a helmet, adults should always be supervising the activity,” the sheriff said. “And if you have two people on different motor vehicles, or different machinery, both need to be very cognitive of where the other is at and use extreme caution at all times.”
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