Well Fall Rescue

Details

Location

Lisburn

Year

1965

Date

Production 13/10/1965

Length

19sec

Audio

mute

Format

16mm

black and white

Source

Digitised as part of the UTV Archive Partnership Project (ITV, Northern Ireland Screen and PRONI)

Courtesy

Department for Communities, ITV, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, UTV Archive

Rights Holder

ITV

It is illegal to download, copy, print or otherwise utilise in any other form this material, without written consent from the copyright holder.

Description

On the face of it, this appears to be footage with no context. The silent UTV report is of two men pointing at a vague sort of hole in the ground and the paperwork merely titles it as “well fall rescue”. However, the newspapers for the date in question reveal a front page story recounting how a ten-year-old girl, Margaret Burns of Lisburn, stumbled through a manhole opening and into a 22-foot shaft in a field near her home. She broke her fall about two thirds of the way down on some rough foot holes and clung on as her friends ran for help.

Margaret was lucky that Captain William Wright, a keen potholer, was visiting a nearby garage when the news broke and he was able to fetch some rope from his car to rescue her. Fortunately, Margaret didn’t sustain any major injuries but was kept in hospital overnight for shock. 

Credits

An Ulster Television Production.
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