Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has praised a 10-year-old for her quick-thinking actions during an incident on her family farm.
A blaze broke out at the enterprise at Bishopscourt Road, Downpatrick on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022.
Caoimhe Digney was about to assist her to tend to some newly born lambs when she happened to look out the back kitchen window and saw smoke coming from one of the farm sheds.
She quickly raised the alarm by alerting her mum and, according to the fire service, she ran to investigate to confirm there was a fire.
Caoimhe promptly urged her mum to call the emergency services and asked her nanny to grab a torch and Hi-Vis jacket to stand out on the road to direct attending fire crews.
She then ran to a neighbour’s house to ask him to help them move the ewes and lambs to another shed.
Whilst doing so, her mother, Sian, utilised a garden hose to extinguish the “small” fire.
According to a statement from the fire service, the blaze was caused by a heat lamp being knocked over by one of the sheep onto a bale of hay.
The spokesperson said: “When firefighters from Downpatrick arrived, they were relieved to find the fire had been extinguished due to Caoimhe’s quick actions.”
“The Downpatrick fire crew were so impressed with Caoimhe they invited her and her mum Sian to the Station last Wednesday night to thank her for her prompt actions.”
“The fire crew were delighted to learn that Caoimhe had remembered her ‘P5 Safety Team’ talk delivered by NIFRS.”
“She confident to safely investigate and raise the alarm when she spotted the fire,” the spokesperson concluded.
Farmer rescued from silo after cave-in
Meanwhile, Cedar Rapids Fire Department rescued a man after he became trapped in a corn silo in Iowa, in the US.
The rescue operation took place on a farm on Thrarp Rd SW in January of this year.
According to a spokesperson for the fire department, “the victim was trapped in corn up to his chest after a cavity below gave way and sucked the victim down into the grain”.
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