7-year-old killed at Beamish fell from steam engine driven by father - Telegraph.co.uk

DCI Victoria Fuller, who is leading the joint investigation, said: "We are treating this as a tragic incident and are working with our colleagues in the Health and Safety Executive to establish the exact circumstances.

"We have already spoken to a number of witnesses but need to speak to some key people who may have been on a bus or tram which passed the traction engine around the time of the incident which occurred at around 3pm."

A post mortem carried out on Sunday showed that death was due to a head injury. Mr Doran, 41, was taken to hospital suffering from shock but was later able to speak to police.

Richard Evans, the museum director, said today: "We continue to support the joint investigation and offer our deep condolences to Karl's family."

Beamish is award-winning "living" museum, which has working trams and other old fashioned machines driving around its grounds. At the time of the accident it was packed with families on the opening weekend of the school holidays.

After the accident the museum was evacuated and closed, but a spokesman said they took the "difficult" decision to re-open yesterday because they were expecting visitors from all over the country and to close it at short notice would have caused difficulty for those travelling.

The museum is one of the north east's major tourists attractions and preserves life as it was in 1913.

^{Beamish Museum}

Its thousands of objects and original, replica and relocated buildings are based on the early 20th century, late Victorian period and the Industrial Revolution of 1825.

They include a replica town, village, railway station and farm which helps preserve traditional and rare livestock breeds, as well as a mid-19th century drift mine

Durham county councillor Carl Marshall, from Stanley, was at the museum with his family when the accident happened, and witnessed efforts to save the boy at the top end of the events field.

He said: "It was quite frantic for a few minutes. It is tragic.

"I don't know exactly what happened. There were a couple of steam vehicles on that part of the museum when we arrived.

"Staff seemed to act very promptly."