Co Derry mum who lost teenage son in crash backs campaign to reduce road deaths

A Northern Ireland mum, who lost her teenage son in a crash over ten years ago, is among those backing a new campaign to reduce road deaths.

Debbie Mullan’s 17-year-old son Keelan was killed when he crashed into a tractor on a rural road near his family home in the village of Drumsurn in Co Derry on 2nd March 2013.

Keelan was killed after his car struck black ice and he collided with a tractor and slurry tank. The young man had passed his driving test just a few weeks before he died.

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Meanwhile Christopher Sherrard lost his 60-year-old father Wilson in a road traffic collision on the Foreglen Road, Claudy in 2016. Wilson, from the Fountain area, had been a passenger in a vehicle.

Keelan and Wilson were among 684 road traffic collision fatalities in the north between 2013 to 2023. One person loses their life on NI’s roads on average every week and 57 have died so far this year.

The victims of those crashes, including those who have been injured, their families, friends and the emergency services, are at the centre of this Road Safety Week 2024.

Debbie said her son was killed instantly when he crashed on suspected black ice as he drove to their local town to buy a crusty loaf of bread.

She recalled: “I saw a police car coming into the drive and it came to a stop just beside our patio doors. I still can't hear the words, I just see the faces of the two police officers.

“Without being able to control the car, Keelan went into an oncoming tractor and slurry tank and he was killed instantly. I never want any other parent to experience what I have experienced.

“Wherever your journey is, I want you to drive so that you arrive, that you are alive, that your parents are not going to have that knock on the door.”

Recalling the day of his father's death on August 2nd, 2016, Christopher said: “When my dad left in the morning time, he wasn’t expecting not to come home; he left the front door and he never came back. I would not want anyone to go through that experience because it just doesn’t last for one day, it lasts for a lifetime.

“It didn’t just affect our family, it affected my daddy’s friends, it affected his work colleagues, it affected the fire officers who attended the scene, it affected the paramedics and the PSNI officers and also those who witnessed the scene, it was a horrible, horrible crash.

“Until the day my dad died I had never thought about road safety. My plea to everybody is to please drive carefully on the roads.”

Debbie and Christopher are members of the North West Road Safety Partnership, which has this week signed up to the Department for Infrastructure’s Share the Road to Zero community engagement campaign.

The partnership promotes road safety, having themselves experienced the devastation of losing a loved one as a result of a road traffic collision.

Ulster Rugby, the Northern Ireland Football League and IFA, Ulster GAA, PSNI, Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service have previously signed up to the campaign.

Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd said: “I would like to thank the North West Road Safety Partnership for the important work they do to help raise awareness about road safety.

“I would particularly thank Debbie and Christopher for telling their stories as a reminder to us of the impact, often lifelong, that serious and fatal road traffic collisions have on too many people.

“Every single week, at least one person – a mum, a dad, a son, a daughter, a friend - is not coming home to their family and their loved ones.

“These are people, not just a statistic, and their lives are shattered and will never be the same again. Long after the headlines are forgotten, victims have to live with the loss, the memories and the thoughts of what could have been.”

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