'He could have drowned': Traumatised boy, 8, falls into drain full of sewage

Jack McMenamin, eight, unwittingly stepped onto a loose manhole cover in Larkfield which swung open like a trap door.

The terrified youngster fell down into the drain and was up to his neck in dirty water.

His mum today told how her son sustained a head injury and damaged his leg but she says he could potentially have died.

Chelsea, 33, said: "I feel sick at the thought of it.

"He could have drowned.

"It's the first time he was allowed to go to the shops on his own with his friends.

"Now I feel like keeping him in the house.

"Jack got a terrible fright, he was up to his neck in sewage, it was even in his ears.

"He was in so much pain.

"The leg he hurt folded under and he managed to grab on at the top.

"I don't know how far it goes down, a child smaller than him could have drowned.

"I can't stop thinking about it."

Jack received treatment at A&E and was allowed home but remains in significant pain and is confined to the house, with his mum told to use iodine patches to guard against his wounds becoming infected.

Jack, who lives in the town's Branchton, told our sister title The Greenock Telegraph how he'd gone to the shops in Auchmead Road with his friends when the accident happened.

He said: "My friend lives in the house near the lane there and I had been talking to him through the fence when I stepped back and I fell.

"I was so frightened.

"I was shouting for help and crying.

"I was trying to pull myself up but I was stuck.

"I banged my leg off the side and I feel forward and hit my head.

"It was really sore."

Chelsea said her son was in serious distress when he got to IRH.

She said: "The doctors initially thought he had fractured his leg and sent him for an X-ray.

"We've been told he has torn ligaments - he's in agony and can hardly walk or put his left foot down."

The youngster, who attends Aileymill Primary, hasn't been able to go to school, and is missing playing football with his St Andrew's Boys' Club team.

Chelsea said: "His clothes were absolutely soaked with dirty sewage water and his head was grazed."

The youngster says he has been struggling to get the ordeal out of his head, while his family are demanding answers about why such a dangerous situation was allowed to occur.

Jack said: "I can't sleep because I keep thinking about it.

"I was so scared."

Chelsea, who has two other children, Sophia, 10, and Callum, 16, said her mum Kay contacted the council about the incident and was advised to speak to Scottish Water.

The family say they've also contacted ward councillor Innes Nelson but received no reply.

A member of the local authority's roads department has since informed the family the ground where the drain is located is private land and they are trying to establish who owns it.

Chelsea says she will not rest until she has answers over why the manhole cover was left lying loose.

She said: "I am not letting this go."