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AFTER TWO OF Abbey Hehir’s cousins drowned in quarries, she set out to try to prevent similar accidents.
She joined up with two of her classmates from St John Bosco Community College in Clare – Ryely Cantrell and Rebecca Murphy – to examine how slurry pit deaths could be prevented on Irish farms.
The group have presented their device at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, underway at the RDS in Dublin this week: Infrared sensors that detect if a large object has entered the slurry pit.
The device then sends an alert to a list of mobile numbers belonging to people in the local area.
Watch the video above for our full report. Additional reporting by Hayley Halpin.
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Great invention,I speak from experience, when I was four I fell into a slurry pit on my grandfathers farm, I did not know what it was but the more I struggled to free myself , I was being pulled down .My sister who was a year older was standing beside me on firm ground, I remember holding on to her ankles and telling her I couldn’t get out , she started to shout and it drew the attention of my Dad who instantly ran and caught me by my hair as I went under and managed to pull me out.It was horrific,I was almost suffocated ,strangely it has always stayed with me. Any system which could prevent an accident like this is so welcome and I wish the girls well with their invention.
@Honeybee: you’d want to be very quick though. I’m not sure if sending a text message to a nearby farm is going to get rescuers there fast enough. And some people are very slow to look at texts besides.
@Sean: Maybe they can improve on it somehow, as you say time is everything, I sank in the mud in minutes and like I say my Dad only got there as I went under, I was fair haired, that’s what he saw,another few seconds and they would not have known where to look.
@Honeybee: it’s not at all strange this has always stayed with you. Sounds like it was very traumatic. I almost drowned as a 6 year old. I remember every part of each second like it was yesterday.
Steel grill with 6×6 squares is the obvious solution.
@Mike McGann: vast majority of slurry pits are covered with concrete slats yet people still get killed when mixing and emptying, gas is a far bigger problem than people simply falling in by accident
Fantastic. Have to love their innovation and enthusiasm. Fair play girls.
@Seán Horgan: Completely agree with you. It is truly wonderful to see the innovative and imaginative projects that these inspiring young people have worked so hard upon – for example, Hugh Murtagh and his Autism alert wristband. They are a credit to themselves, their schools, peers and parents. Fair play to them all!
The dangerous gas that kills people in slurry pits is Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S). There are a number of low cost commercially available portable gas detectors that clip onto your clothing when you are in proximity to a risk area. These are very common in the oil & gas industry where H2S levels can by high enough to present a significant risk. If the government and IFA were serious about protecting farmers, they could very easily introduce a H2S appreciation course to make people more aware of the risk, as well as organising a cost efficient means of providing H2S detectors. While object detection may be useful, H2S can kill quickly, and anyone attempting rescue without the proper PPE will be putting themselves at the same risk!
Absolutely fantastic idea!
I have to agree with some that people are slow to react to text messages. A phone call with a prerecorded message would be way more efficient.
I’ve always said: if it’s urgent, don’t text. Ring instead!
Even better: Both. If the call doesn’t get picked up, the text will be there to let the recipient know why they were called.
But if they take all this good feedback on board, I’m sure they’ll have an excellent product on hand. Wishing them all the success they can get!
Perhaps a super loud siren on top of the barn, to alert the first man closest. With a wifi signal alerting to local ambulance, and neoghbouring farmers. Farmers journal could partner with these entrepreneurs and farm TV as well, who are doing good work on the issue, to make this problem history.
Well done girls. Great innovation in farm safety. Every farm should have one.
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