A six-day-old baby was lucky not to be blinded by flying debris as workmen broke up the High Street paving slabs, a Newport couple have said.
Emma Hall was walking past the roadworks with new-born Bridie strapped to her front when small pieces of concrete flew up and hit her child in the face. One piece landed just two centimetres from tiny Bridie’s right eye, leaving a mark.
Distressed Miss Hall, of Upper Bar, tried to tell the workmen what had happened, but she said she was ignored.
Miss Hall, 35, said: “I was just walking back from the shops with Bridie strapped to my front in a harness.
“We were going past Henshalls and a workman was breaking concrete with a sledgehammer. “Pieces of concrete were flying everywhere and there was a lot of dust.
“Obviously she was crying a lot. I tried to get the worker’s attention but nobody noticed me.
“So I took the phone number off their board and tried phoning that, but it was the wrong number.”
Partner Michael Clare, 34, did eventually manage to hold of a Fitzgerald representative.
He said: “We had the health and safety guy ring us on Friday and he said he couldn’t understand what happened.
“When I said that the site could be closed down he started to become a nicer person.”
Mr Clare, a construction engineer, has been visited by Telford & Wrekin Project Manager Guy Biddulph.
He has since requested the CCTV footage of the incident, which happened last Monday at around 2.30pm.
Mr Clare added: “We’re not going to let it lie because my daughter means more than anything in the world.
“That could have been a serious accident. What would they be doing if the child was blinded at this stage?”
A spokesman for Thomas Vale construction, the parent company for Fitzgerald, said no health and safety rules had been breached.
She said: “The Health and Safety Executive reported that there were no breaches of health and safety or relevant legislative compliances and have confirmed that no investigation in to the alleged incident will be undertaken.
“We have personally invited the family to talk to our Customer Care Director, one to one, in an open discussion as part of our on-going customer improvement programme.”
A Telford & Wrekin Council spokesman said:?“We sympathise with the family and as soon as the Council was made aware of the issue, we spoke with the family that afternoon to discuss the issue and are continuing to pursue this with contractors.”
By Sean Wozencroft