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UNIMAGINABLE PAIN
My son, 11, was killed after scaffolding sheet fell off lorry & smashed through windscreen…I’ll never forgive the driver
Maria told how going back to work has been a 'massive trigger'
A MUM whose 11-year-old son was killed when a scaffolding sheet fell off a lorry says she can never forgive the driver.
Harry Dennis was travelling in a car with his dad Lee, 51, and older sister when the unsecured scaffolding sheet smashed through the windshield.
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The schoolboy was rushed to hospital after the incident on the B2095 in Hooe, East Sussex, on December 15, 2022 but later died.
Driver Russell Le Beau, 34, was jailed for four years in November after admitting causing death by dangerous driving.
Harry's mum Maria Dennis, 38, told The Sun she can sympathise that Le Beau is "a normal guy that went to work that day" and "didn't set out" to harm anyone.
"That's part of me," she said, adding: "The bit that makes me really cross and that I can't accept and can never forgive is that it could have easily not happened."
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The offender failed to make the correct checks that his load was secure, which resulted in the freak accident.
"His actions caused Harry to not live the rest of his life like he should have done...I can't live with that," Maria continued.
"And even if he got 100 years in prison, that still would not have made me feel any better."
The heartbroken mum went on to describe the day of the accident, when her husband and kids were going to a hospital appointment.
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Harry and his sister were distance learning because the school’s heating system had failed.
The schoolboy had been ensuring he got his work down in the morning so he could spend the afternoon and evening playing on his Xbox.
Maria, an assistant hospital physio, was suddenly taken into a side room by colleagues that afternoon alongside her best friend and her mum.
She said: "They said...Harry's been in an accident, and the air ambulance had been called.
"At that moment, that's all I knew. And they were saying it's okay.
"And I was thinking, it's not okay, because you don't get air ambulances if it's not serious."
She went on to say she remembered then "breaking down".
"It was like from that minute life went into slow-mo, but my brain switched off," she said.
"I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know where I was. It was like being in a dream. I was just numb and dazed."
She said it was a Thursday and usually she would have got home from work and taken Harry to football training and then would have started making dinner.
It was during the World Cup in Qatar and so football would have been likely playing on the TV. "Just normal stuff", she added, fighting back tears.
'MELTDOWN'
The accident was just 10 days before Christmas, with Harry's family having to organise his funeral during what should have been festive celebrations.
"Our brains couldn't cope with anything else," recalled Maria.
"Then we were trying to find our feet, how we were going to get through this."
Maria also spoke about the trauma of having to go back to work in a hospital.
She would have panic attacks just seeing empty beds or hearing monitors beeping.
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Maria said: "I used to freak out about the hospital beds, that was a massive trigger.
"I couldn't walk down the corridor. I used to have to walk... with my manager, linking arms, looking the other way.
"As soon as I saw a hospital bed it absolutely threw me into meltdown," she continued.
But she knew she had to overcome the triggers.
"I thought, right, I work in a hospital, so I need to be able to deal with this, so every time I went into work I made myself walk down the corridor," she explained.
Maria said it took six weeks or so before she could actually walk, even just by an empty hospital bed.
She added: "But I knew I had to do it because I enjoyed my job, and I wanted to go back.
"I thought, I’ve had my son taken away from me, I’m not having my job taken away as well."
But it wasn't just seeing hospital beds, she would also be triggered by the beeps from different monitors and machines, as it reminded her of seeing Harry fighting for his life.
I have to retrain my brain to hear those noises and see these things without it going into meltdown
Maria Dennis, 38
Maria said: "I have to retrain my brain to hear those noises and see these things without it going into meltdown."
The mum would also find herself in floods of tears whenever driving near Harry’s primary and secondary schools, which are just down the road from the family home - particularly when pupils were coming out.
"It got to a point I thought, I can't let that dictate my life," she said.
"Don't get me wrong, sometimes it still catches me and I can get tearful."
Whenever she sees a van or HGV on the road ahead she will be obsessively checking to make sure its loads are secure and no straps are loose.
And, to some extent, that has led her to working with Sussex Police on a new road safety campaign Operation Spotlight.
Throughout July, officers are joining forces across the UK to shine the spotlight on the “fatal five” factors which are considered the main causes of serious injury of fatal collisions on our roads.
These factors are dangerous or careless driving, driving while distracted such as by using a mobile phone, drink or drug-driving, driving at excess speed, and not wearing a seatbelt.
She said: “A scaffolding board came off the scaffold truck through the windscreen of the car and struck Harry. There was nothing they could do to save him.
“It was completely avoidable. It didn’t need to happen.
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“My message to drivers out there is this, before you get in the car, think about Harry, not just Harry. It happens all too often. There’s far too many families that have been broken by this."
For my information on Operation Spotlight .
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