Leah Harrison inquest told mudslide death was unavoidable

An activities coordinator has said an investigation into the death of a 10 -year -old girl killed in a landslide that the incident “could not have been predicted and could not have been warned.”

Leah Harrison, a year of Year 6 at Mount Plelanant Primary School in Darlington, died in May last year making a residential trip to Carlton Adventure in Carlton-in-CCleveland, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park.

At the beginning of the investigation in the Tesside magistrates, Senior Activity Coordinator Paul Godwin said Leah was with a group of children who participated in a ride in the forest.

He said that the climate “did not cause me any concern for the Leah Group”, the conditions at all times were misty.

Godwin said that the risk of a mud slip was “totally unforeseen” and that he would not have bone included in a risk assessment because “there was no prior indication” or such an event.

He said he was supervision of another activity in the center when he was informed of what had happened.

The jury of the investigation also listened to a written statement from Leah’s mother, Michelle Harrison.

She said that Leah was a “happy and fortunate person with a beautiful and infectious smile.”

Mrs. Harrison said Althegh Leah recently had bad with tonsillitis that was waiting for the trip to the center of Adventure.

She said she was “proud as a blow” to be on the trip.

In a statement read the jury of the investigation, the pathologist of the Ministry of Interior, Dr. Jennifer Bolton, said that Leah died “traumatic suffocation”, but had no “natural disease.”

A two -month investigation conducted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) concluded last December that no one was to blame.

The sliding of mud, at the Hartlepool Borough Council, happened, while a yellow climate of the office warns for heavy rains.

The director Joanne Blackham, who was on the journey of activities, said that Leah “had really impressed her in the activities and” was expelled from her comfort zone. “

When reading a statement that had previously made the police, he was excited when he described that the sludge slide brought as a “lava flow.”

With the barros to the chest, Mrs. Blackburn tried to get Leaeh out of her legs but “there was no movement.”

She said she had no groups previously about climatic conditions, describing him as “only one rainy day.”

“Literally, he has just out of nowhere, the roar and the career of water and mud could be heard.

“I simply suffer it, I just taught it.”

The investigation, which is expected to last up to two days, continues.