Mother of family at centre of puddle splash police probe says child left ill for days after incident

Family of five left completely soaked after mother claimed ‘callous’ driver ‘sped up’ towards them

The family of five, including children were completely soaked from by the driver as they walked along Hearthcote Road in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, on Tuesday (Google Maps)

The mother of a disabled family drenched after a driver sped through a large puddle has said her eight-year-old has been left vomiting for days.

A family of five, including children aged eight and 10 and a baby in a pushchair, was soaked from top to toe by the “unbelievably callous” driver as they walked along Hearthcote Road in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, on Tuesday. Police are investigating the incident.

The irate mother said she was walking with her children, some of whom have physical disabilities, along the pavement when a white car came towards them at around 2pm. Realising what was about to happen, she gestured at the driver to stop with her hand but claimed the car “sped up”, soaking them all in the murky street water.

The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, told MailOnline it caused one of her children to later get sick.

She said: “Three of the children are disabled. The two younger children had degenerative diseases, they struggle to walk at the best of times and the older ones in in her wheelchair.

“My eight-year-old has been vomiting for two days. I can’t help but think that’s as a result of the incident, because the amount of water that they must have ingested in the puddle, which had been there for two days with an awful lot of traffic going through, so I dread to think what was in the puddle.

“The two young ones really struggled to stay warm at the best of times and it took over an hour to warm them up. We got home, changed them, put the heating on, and wrapped them in blankets. But it was an hour before they felt warm again.”

The mother said the family has not left the house since, and she fears how her children will react when they do finally venture out. Her eldest son will not feel safe, she said, as he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Telling of the distress the ordeal brought for her children, she said: “My son is 6ft tall and he was drenched. The water went right over his head. My two-year-old granddaughter was screaming, ‘I don’t like it’. The pushchair was wet through.”

Derbyshire Police has appealed to the public for any information to help trace the driver.

According to the Road Traffic Act 1988, a person may be charged with the offence of careless and inconsiderate driving if they drive a vehicle on a road or other public place without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons.

Drivers can be landed with fines up to £5,000 and nine penalty points on the licence.

Some have claimed on social media that investigating the incident is a waste of police’s time, to which the mother responded that people should consider being in the position of caring for three disabled children who need to stay dry and warm.

She added: “It just feels such a callous act, when you just need to slow down and be kind, instead you do something so deliberate.”

In 2018 a woman in her 90s died after falling over when she was splashed by cars driving through a puddle. Hilda Moore, 95, was taken to hospital with a head wound after she collapsed on the pavement in the Lincolnshire town of Sleaford.