Youth and daughter injured in freak accident at Tyronne Fernando stadium

A youth from  Moratuwa and his six year old daughter were caught in a freak accident at the Tyronne Fernando stadium in Katubedda,  after a roof sheet fell on them causing severe injuries.

The family said the accident occurred on February 22.

Mr Lahiru Fernando had taken  his two daughters aged 10 and six to the Tyronne Fernando Stadium as the children wanted to play.

Mr Fernando had parked the car and as they were entering the stadium, a large Amano sheet has swooshed in towards them, off the roof of the stadium’s grandstand, which is three storeys high.

He had heard the sound from behind, and seeing the Amano sheet plummeting towards them, had yelled at the kids to run. The elder girl had managed to get away but the second girl had stopped.  The father had covered her head with his arm and hunched over her.

As a result the  sheet cut right into Mr Fernando’s left forearm and has even sliced off a piece of his bone while rupturing all the tendons and superficial nerves as the doctor s explained to us later, his family explained.

The impact also left two deep cuts on the six year old girl’s head and a skull fracture.

Mr Fernando had driven home with one hand, while he was bleeding profusely from the left arm. Their house is located just minutes from the stadium.

The family members rushed to them to a clinic close by where the doctor attended to them and instructed that  both of them be rushed  to the hospital.

They were rushed to Kalubowila via an ambulance while the daughter was taken to the Lady Ridgeway Hospital  where the CT scan indicated that she has a skull fracture, resulting in her transfer to the National Hospital’s Neurotrauma Unit.

Mr Fernando  was taken into a private hospital later  to reconstruct the severed arm and underwent a nearly 4-5 hour surgery. He will be required  to wear the cast for at least next six weeks after which he will have to undergo physiotherapy to regain full function of the hand.

At the National Hospital, the daughter underwent a procedure to drain blood from inside her skull, on the outer layer of the brain caused by the depressed fracture.

The sister of Mr Fernando said in her post on the Facebook said “All this because proper maintenance wasn’t followed at the Tyronne Fernando Stadium, and we can only wonder where the tax-payers’ money goes, especially since as it turns out, this part of the roof has been hanging for some time, and fatefully the bad wind at that time gave way for it to come off.”