Man paralysed when mechanical claw lifted his tent in Dublin feels ‘lucky to be alive’

Elias Adane does not like to dwell on the moment, three years ago, when the claws of a vehicle’s mechanical arm broke through his tent, leaving him with catastrophic, life-changing injuries.

Now using a wheelchair, the slight, bright-eyed man describes the incident in only in brief terms and says a number of times how “lucky to be alive” and “safe” he now feels.

Originally from Eritrea, the 33-year-old came to Ireland as an unaccompanied minor in the early 2000s. Recognised as a refugee – he fled his home country, he says, because he was facing military conscription. He says he “liked Ireland when I came”.

“I was staying in a hostel – I got breakfast, dinner, lunch. I became homeless after,” he says.

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Adane began smoking marijuana and later heroin. By the time he was injured, he was “sometimes injecting” heroin too.

He was asleep in his tent, near Leeson Street bridge by the Grand Canal in Dublin, on the morning of January 14th, 2020. A clean-up operation by Waterways Ireland was taking place, clearing numerous tents from the canal bank, some of which had been there for months.

“I was staying there nearly three months when the ‘attack’ came,” he says. “I used to take drugs, heroin, so I liked this hiding place I found. You know, if you take drugs you have to hide. I had some heroin and was asleep. I heard nothing,” he says of the moments before the claw started to lift his tent.

My bone is broken and now I have metal to be able to stand. Without metal I am down. My body is down

Reports at the time said personnel from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) were checking the tents before they were lifted, so they could provide advice and support on the accommodation services available to any occupants. The tent clearance, however, was a Waterways Ireland initiative.

It is understood that Adane’s tent was not opened but “checked verbally” and there was no response. The worker operating the vehicle was given the go-ahead to lift the tent. When it was lifted, however, Adane screamed and moved, and his tent was returned immediately to the ground.

An ambulance was called.

Describing the incident, he says: “When (it) hit me two times, they shout. It was very quick, it broke a bone. It was definitely ... like a big knife, like a machine. It went in my body, the skin break, the bone break,” he says.

“I was not picked up. I shouted. A social worker came and someone called the ambulance and I went to the hospital.”

He spent five months in St Vincent’s University Hospital, having a number of surgeries to insert screws and plates into his spine to stabilise it.

“My bone is broken and now I have metal to be able to stand. Without metal I am down. My body is down. I was lucky the weapon did not break my head, but now I am paralysed from here [his waist] down.”

After being discharged from hospital, he spent three months in the National Rehabilitation Centre in Dún Laoghaire and from there was placed in a flat in Ballybough, owned and managed by the Peter McVerry Trust under its Housing First programme. This provides housing and wraparound, continual supports to people who have been sleeping rough for extended periods of time.

Francis Doherty, director of housing with the trust, explains its outreach team was asked by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to support Elias and they began this work two days after the incident – building a relationship with, and explaining to him what Housing First was and how he could be supported.

It is understood that Adane found his tenancy in Ballybough difficult to manage. Drug users who knew him were frequent, unwelcome visitors.

“I liked it in the city, but it was noisy and a lot of visitors. Some were good, but some bad. It was difficult. They come a lot and one guy brought three or four visitors and I don’t like it. I tell him to go out.”

He had come off heroin in hospital and was on methadone but abstinence was difficult to maintain in such circumstances.

He also has high, ongoing care needs. He cannot go to the toilet and needs regular enemas and a catheter bag. He needs assistance with self-care such as dressing and is highly vulnerable to infections. He develops wounds related to the incident, around his lower back, which he cannot feel and which can become badly infected as a result, sometimes requiring hospitalisation.

It was decided, says Doherty, that Adane would be better cared for, and safer, at a Housing First complex in north Co Dublin.

The sickness is terrible. I can’t sleep. I want to quit it

Sitting in his bright, warm apartment, Adane says there are staff on-site 24 hours a day and he has groceries and meals brought daily. He dislikes the meals but has discovered Weetabix and has “four plates” of the cereal a day.

“I like it here. It is quiet,” he says of the complex.

Asked how he feels about the incident now, he says again he is “lucky” that the claw did not more seriously paralyse or kill him.

“My family was not happy. I call them. I tell them I had crash. They were not happy.”

His family, he says, are his younger sister Masresha, whom he has not seen since 2004, her husband and their two children. His parents are not alive, he says.

“My sister, she was working in Dubai, cleaning the house for three years. She lives in Addis Ababa. So I think maybe if I get money, I want to go to visit quickly and come back,” he says. “I speak to her on the phone on WhatsApp.”

He shows a photograph of Masresha with her children. “She looks like me, no?”.

He says later he would like to move to Addis Ababa. “I have no legs so it is better to be with family. I need to get money and yes, yes I would like to go to Ethiopia.”

Adane is still taking methadone – 80ml a day – and would like to get off it. “The sickness is terrible. I can’t sleep. I want to quit it.”

He is hoping to start a course in computers in the summer.

He has a long scar across one side of his face, from the front and down past his jaw. Asked if this was related to the canal incident, he says it was not. “That happened in Burgh Quay. Some alcoholic people came and went on my face by knife. I am lucky, they didn’t get my throat. They tried to kill me.”

Doherty agrees Adane’s experiences during several years sleeping rough underline just how vulnerable people in such situations are.

“We say it again and again – the vulnerability of sleeping in a tent. We have always encouraged people to come into shelter, at least so we can get them on a pathway to housing. We know people have their own valid reasons for resisting that, but they will be more secure and there are far better outcomes.”

Reflecting on what Ireland has offered a former child refugee, who ended up homeless and ultimately severely disabled, Adane is perhaps more forgiving than many would be.

“Ireland is a good place if you work, get job. I made a mistake. I took the drugs, the heroin and that is what happened to me.”

He says, however, that “someone should have checked [his tent] more”.

His civil case against Waterways Ireland and Dublin City Council is ongoing. Neither would provide a comment.