Parents of Lancashire boy, 4, killed by falling gravestone speak out

Blackpool Gazette

The parents of a boy who died after a gravestone fell onto his head in Lancashire are calling for cemeteries to be made safer. Four-year-old Eli Testa’s parents are urging the government to bring in tighter rules around headstone maintenance. They say no other families should have to go through the trauma that they have.

Transcript

00:00This is some kind of sick joke that we've lost a four-year-old boy for a dead person's data symbol.

00:08I understand that people want to respect the dead and that's fine,

00:13but having monuments that are 10 plus feet tall and that are 200 years old

00:21and there isn't even a relative that even remembers who that person is,

00:25it just seems absurd.

00:30I've had to lose my son for something that could have been prevented

00:36if they were properly maintained, so I think this is very important.

00:42We want to kind of bring in a law to either make headstones laid flat

00:49or you can only have them a certain height.

00:52I want them to be checked regularly.

00:55I know they are meant to be checked maybe once a year, but it needs to be more.

00:59I'd feel awful if I didn't do anything now and it happened to someone else.

01:05Like, we need to make a change to make them safe.

01:08Hopefully if, you know, we do get the 100,000 and it goes through

01:14and hopefully we can change the law, hopefully we can save lives

01:17because no-one thinks going into a cemetery a headstone is going to fall.

01:23So hopefully we can get something in place where it is safe

01:27and they are pinned down properly

01:29so no-one else has to lose their life or get hurt.

01:33Let's say goodbye.

01:34Let's take a look at this.

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