Checks on drain where girl was trapped

A sewer in Tipton which flooded during a freak storm, causing a nine-year-old girl to become trapped in a drain cover, is being investigated by engineers.

Workers from Severn Trent have been assessing the drain and connecting sewer in Waterloo Street, after schoolgirl Courtney Corbett became trapped up to her waist for two hours on Sunday.

Fire crews had to cut Courtney from the roadside drain after the cover, which had been damaged and had a gaping hole in it, was submerged under the floodwater. The youngster, a pupil at Corpus Christi Primary School in Wolverhampton, was playing with friends when she fell into the drain, trapping her leg up to the knee and leaving her waist deep in water.

Firefighters had to pump the water away from the road before they could cut her free.

Sandwell Council has now covered the drain with sandbags and have called in the engineers to look into a suspected flooding problem within the pipe work. Councillor Mahboob Hussain, cabinet member for neighbourhoods and housing, said: "I am very sorry to hear that the young girl was trapped in the drain and the distress it caused her.

"However, we had not received a complaint about this drain – if we had it would have been replaced because it is our policy and practice to replace broken drain tops immediately because of the obvious potential dangers.

"This policy in confirmed by the fact that when drain tops are stolen, as they often are, the problem is dealt with immediately. Drain tops can be cracked by vehicles and are not spotted until they are broken – sometimes by the huge surcharge of water in the system in extreme flooding conditions."

Sophie Jordan, spokeswoman for Severn Trent Water said the engineers had been out yesterday.

She said: "We visited Waterloo Street yesterday to investigate reported problems on our sewerage system.

"These problems have been reported to us by the council and we will have further information following our site visit."