Northern Ireland #7 Forget armoured cars, tanks n guns …Just deliver the £600 funds

[Wee Nora]

Very sad and extremely worrying about the 5 year old child in Belfast just listening about it here and they’re saying it takes too long to diagnose, swabs being sent off and results taking days to come back.

5 year old girl has died from strep A in Belfast.

I'm finding the police situation with Matthew odd. I notice PSNI sharing missing children posts a lot, mostly habitual absconders who have SS involvement and it is them who ask police to share, both agencies are covering themselves and it is left at a SM post, there is nothing to "we are growing increasingly concerned" no searches, nothing.
Matthew wasn't a "troubled child" nor was Noah, their mothers knew something was very off but the police refused to take them seriously, doing the bare minimum putting a post on SM and leaving communities to do the leg work. That's not OK. Could either of these boys been saved? I actually understand the anger.
If this was a primary school aged girl would they have waited, I don't think so. There's an element of boys will be boys to this and teenagers ah what are they like. These lads had no history, they came from loving homes, both were adored, they were the centre of their parents lives, honestly it has just wrecked me, I strongly believe they were let down by our police service.

As a mother to a boy the same age I know I’d feel the same as this woman. As much as my son likes his freedom, he tells me where he is, his phone is never off and if he didn’t come home and I couldn’t reach him I’d know that something was wrong.
He was a child and 12 hours is far too long to do nothing. If the post mortem establishes a time of death and it turns out he could’ve been saved if he was found earlier the police will have a case to answer.

 

[BigMavis]

You know what else is going to happen, we'll have a ring side seat watching another mother driven mad with grief. It will be very public on SM.
I'm of the opinion we shouldn't see that but I believe the McCallans and Donohoes have the right to express themselves.

 

[Wee Nora]

You know what else is going to happen, we'll have a ring side seat watching another mother driven mad with grief. It will be very public on SM.
I'm of the opinion we shouldn't see that but I believe the McCallans and Donohoes have the right to express themselves.

I suppose when your only child is gone, as is the case with both Matthew and Noah then the grief and loss is amplified and there aren’t as many distractions as you might have if you had other children to keep you going. I do think something bad happened to Noah, nothing about him ending up naked in a storm drain makes any sense to me so I understand why the family are searching for answers.
Noah and Matthew were both children at the end of the day. The police should’ve used every resource at their disposal right away.

 

[BigMavis]

Apparently the young fella realised he'd lost his phone when he got on the bus home, got off to look for it, bus left without him. Friends realised and rang the parents who made their way to Fintona.

 

[AFlyOnYourWall]

Apparently the young fella realised he'd lost his phone when he got on the bus home, got off to look for it, bus left without him. Friends realised and rang the parents who made their way to Fintona.

Just awful. There needs to be some sort of laws put in place to protect our young people and for companies eg bus hire, venues etc to have some accountability

 

[BigMavis]

Also hearing he may have charged his phone in somebody's house.

 

[martha82]

Apparently the young fella realised he'd lost his phone when he got on the bus home, got off to look for it, bus left without him. Friends realised and rang the parents who made their way to Fintona.

You would think he couldn’t have travelled that far in what an hour? All very tragic

 

[monga]

 

[BigMavis]

You would think he couldn’t have travelled that far in what an hour? All very tragic

That much going about its hard to know whats truth or fabrication. Ombudsman are on it.

 

[AFlyOnYourWall]

I hope the family get answers and their grief and pain isn’t drawn out because the police didn’t do their job right. Do they know what the cause of death was?

 

[BigMavis]

I hope the family get answers and their grief and pain isn’t drawn out because the police didn’t do their job right. Do they know what the cause of death was?

Only heard exposure but think that's speculation. It is true police didn't appear to do much initially but apparently in the circumstances that is normal.
Thing is if you had someone lost on the mournes the response would have been immediate, think that's the families argument, they feared he'd lost his way in the dark in unfamiliar territory, possibly under the influence.

 

[Griftymcgriftface]

There’s a lot of noise about why they didn’t get that search and rescue team out? Would there be a reason for that, like unlicensed or something so if they used them would it contaminate a crime scene? Or do they normally work with the PSNI so in reality someone could have called on them?

I have a feeling that since it has been so quickly sent to ombudsman they will make an example out of some junior officer while bryne still takes his massive pay check.

 

[BigMavis]

Grifty is it not standard for things to be referred to ombudsman fairly swiftly? I actually feel a little bad for the officers involved, I'm sure this procedure is standard and the fault lies with the policy makers, but things really need to change, I'm just not sure how they go about that. A lot of teens do turn up fine, if they start a search party for everyone they'd run out of resources and I'm sure all parents are as frantic as this family.
It looked like search and rescue said they have to be invited by the police, I presume they're voluntary. One of those groups gave it both barrels to a person on fb which I felt was unnecessary, maybe they were frustrated I don't know. There are a few search and rescue teams in NI.

 

[Notmycat]

Friend daughter went missing last January, she was having a few drinks in the house and went out to put the cat into the shed for the night, she didn't come back in for ages so her mother went out to look for her, this was around 2.30 am and she had had a few to drink and due to a fall of snow she could see where daughters footsteps went out the gate and then disappeared, She is 26.

Police were called straight away, they had a search and rescue team out straight away as she was only wearing her nightie and dressing gown, she had a quantity of alcohol, there is a river about 750 metres away and she basically disappeared, it was also absolutely freezing, Friend woke me up at 4.45am by banging on my door as she knew my phone is on silent at night to check my doorbell / CCTV footage in case I had caught her on camera going past, she didn't pass my house. I joined the search. She was found standing in the middle of the road about a mile away, confused and frozen,

Her other friends who were covering that end of town spotted her and approached but she ran away screaming. A few of us gathered when the call went out that she was found, she had taken tequila and other drinks on an empty stomach and when she was out sorting out the cat, the alcohol seemed to have hit her system all at once causing her to blackout (but not in the loss of consciousness way), she didn't remember how she got there or who anybody was, police rescue was currently searching the river by 5.30 and she was found at 5.45. She was shaken by it all but after being checked over and released from hospital, she was shocked as she had no memory of how she got to where she was found, a check on some doorbells of her presumed route showed her going past. After a day or so, she was back to her usual self.

The police response couldn't be faulted, one officer stayed in the house as a base while waiting with parents. She was missing less than 4 hours in total,

Its a pity that they didn't make a proper response for Matthew or Noah and sadly it cost them their lives and devasted the families

 

[BigMavis]

That wee girl was in A&E twice and sent home, but yet they're telling parents to access medical care quickly if they notice certain symptoms.

 

[AFlyOnYourWall]

Terrible

 

[monga]

That wee girl was in A&E twice and sent home, but yet they're telling parents to access medical care quickly if they notice certain symptoms.

They’re not always easy to spot .I remember taking my son to the doctor with some of the symptoms of scarlet fever and the doctor said it was probably a virus he had I insisted he gave him an antibiotic because I could see and feel the sandpapery rash even though the doctor couldn’t, they rang me a couple of days later to tell me he did indeed have scarlet fever the swab came back pos

 

[BigMavis]

They’re not always easy to spot .I remember taking my son to the doctor with some of the symptoms of scarlet fever and the doctor said it was probably a virus he had I insisted he gave him an antibiotic because I could see and feel the sandpapery rash even though the doctor couldn’t, they rang me a couple of days later to tell me he did indeed have scarlet fever the swab came back pos

One of mine had it, I don't even think they did a swab, think there were several cases maybe thats why. Probably the sickest any of mine have ever been, getting the meds into them wasn't easy. Temp kept spiking and they were hallucinating, thought giants were coming down from the ceiling, reminiscent of night terrors, they didn't see me or my husband. It was awful. I remember thinking one of the characters in little women died from SF.
Despite us poo pooing what Jeffrey said about medication, I think there is some truth to that and antibiotics are in short supply here.

 

[monga]

One of mine had it, I don't even think they did a swab, think there were several cases maybe thats why. Probably the sickest any of mine have ever been, getting the meds into them wasn't easy. Temp kept spiking and they were hallucinating, thought giants were coming down from the ceiling, reminiscent of night terrors, they didn't see me or my husband. It was awful. I remember thinking one of the characters in little women died from SF.
Despite us poo pooing what Jeffrey said about medication, I think there is some truth to that and antibiotics are in short supply here.

My boy suffered with recurrent tonsillitis since he was a baby so I was expert at seeing the signs and keeping temp under control, I knew there was something different that time, I couldn’t smell it for one and he’d never had a rough rash before.I remember a consultant telling me if you’ve a temp over the 38 mark it’s usually bacterial his used to be in the low 40’s , he was blue lighted once he was so poorly…I think it’s England have the antibiotic shortage I haven’t heard anything about here yet.

 

[BigMavis]

My boy suffered with recurrent tonsillitis since he was a baby so I was expert at seeing the signs and keeping temp under control, I knew there was something different that time, I couldn’t smell it for one and he’d never had a rough rash before.I remember a consultant telling me if you’ve a temp over the 38 mark it’s usually bacterial his used to be in the low 40’s , he was blue lighted once he was so poorly…I think it’s England have the antibiotic shortage I haven’t heard anything about here yet.

There was a doctor on radio Ulster yesterday saying they had created a WhatsApp group with chemists in the area to know who had what, she said antibiotics aren't as readily available as they were. Didn't catch her name.
Jeeze monga thats awful, your poor boy. I'm quite lucky mine have never had much *touch wood. Never even got chicken pox despite being exposed a few times, I've never had it either.
But God I remember SF. If mine were small now this news would really effect me, feel bad for parents with smalls