A mother of five has told how she feared she lost her unborn baby after plunging into a 20ft sewer.
Andrea Harris, who was five months pregnant, was walking with her three-year-old twin daughters when she kicked the cover of an unsecured manhole in Boydstone Road in Lochwinnoch and fell down the shaft last July.
The 35-year-old was rushed to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, after her partner Stuart managed to pull her out of the drain.
Terrifyingly, Andrea feared losing her unborn baby after suffering bruised ribs and painful bruises on her stomach during her dive.
Andrea, who gave birth to healthy baby Rayne in November last year, is now embroiled in an ongoing fight over who is responsible for maintaining the faulty drain and repairing it.
Andrea Harris, who was five months pregnant, was walking with her three-year-old twin daughters when she kicked the cover of an unsecured manhole in Boydstone Road in Lochwinnoch and fell into it. She is pictured with baby Rayne by the drain
She said: “No one wants to take responsibility. I have been back and forth with Renfrewshire Council and other organizations for almost a year now. I never had an apology.
“I’m incredibly lucky that my baby and I weren’t hurt even more. But that should never have happened in the first place.
“I went from different organizations without anyone being able to tell me who is responsible for the manhole. That’s what really makes me angry.
Andrea had just put her twin daughters, Khloe and Keeva, in her partner Stuart’s car when the freak accident happened on July 22 last year.
She said, “I was chatting with the girls and the next thing I knew I was standing there. I had obviously hit the drain with the back of my foot and the lid flipped over.
“My arms were hanging over it but my body went down into the hole. If it wasn’t for the lid, I would have gone all the way down. It’s about 20 feet deep with water at the bottom.
“I was screaming and my partner was looking around trying to find me. The children were hysterical.
‘My baby bump hit the ladder rungs inside the hole. Luckily my partner managed to drag me out and drove me straight to the maternity ward of the hospital to have the baby checked.
Andrea plunged a 20 foot drain down the drain. She was rushed to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock after her partner Stuart managed to pull her out of the well (pictured)
Terrifyingly, Andrea feared losing her unborn baby after suffering bruised ribs and painful bruises on her stomach during her dive. She also suffered leg injuries (pictured)
“When we got there they said I also had to go to A&E to get checked out too because I was in so much pain. Luckily Rayne looked fine, but I had to back out if I started bleeding or started having shooting pains.
“I had bruised ribs and bruises on my stomach. I was in absolute agony. For days I could barely walk.
Andrea, from Kilwinning, told how the incident had a lasting impact on the family.
She said: ‘When we go out now and there is a drain, my twins who were with me that day will bypass it. They are petrified because they obviously saw me go down.
“Even if I had seen this specific manhole, there’s no way I would have stepped on it. The concrete around the manhole cover was crumbling so it obviously hadn’t been maintained in a while.
“I’m just glad it was me who walked on the grass and not the twins because that’s not enough to even think about.”
Scottish Water and Transport Scotland said the drain did not belong to them.
A spokesman for Renfrewshire Council said: ‘We are sorry to hear of this incident. As soon as it was brought to our attention, we secured the area and reported the fault to the relevant authorities who carried out a repair and installed a new cover.