NEWBURYPORT — When Christina Poirier of Peabody brought her 3-year-old son, Nathan, to Maudslay State Park for a daylong visit on Sunday, she thought it was just another one of their fun explorations at a local park.
But the tyke took a tumble down a staircase in an open vacant barn on the grounds, cut his head and ended up in the emergency room. Now, Poirier wants something to be done about the dilapidated buildings and the dangerous grounds around it.
The state agency that runs the park said it's unclear why the buildings are open and unsecured. The buildings themselves are in a state of flux — the state is leasing them to a private company as part of a plan to have them restored and maintained.
The buildings, called the Coachman's Complex, are at the southwestern end of the park. They were built around 1900 for servants and employees when the property was a family estate, and over the years, they have fallen into disrepair.
After a 41âÑ2-hour hike, Poirier said she and her son decided to do some exploring around the trails, forests and hills of the 480-acre park. When they stumbled across the complex off Curzon Mill Road, the two meandered inside a barn, which was open wide.
"We see buildings like this at Endicott Park (in Danvers) all the time and like to go in and get a taste of history," Poirier said. "There's nothing keeping people out, no markings on the building, so we went in thinking it was a neat old house to look at."
After passing former horse stables, the two walked down a hall and crossed a doorway into another empty room. Poirier heard a few loud thuds and looked to her immediate left, where Nathan had fallen 12 feet down a staircase to the basement of the barn.
"It was so dark down there — you couldn't see the bottom of the basement," Poirier said. "I didn't know if he landed on saws, sheet metal or what down there."
Poirier found a glow stick in her backpack and used it to get down the narrow staircase, calling down to Nathan as she went. When she found the boy at the bottom, the light from the glow stick revealed blood all over his head, face and collar, she said.
"It was like a horror movie," she said.
Poirier gathered her 50-pound son in her arms and jogged nearly a half-mile to the park headquarters, where an on-duty park ranger brought the two to the emergency room at Anna Jaques Hospital, where Nathan got a staple in his head, over an inch-long gash.
"It was pretty traumatic," she said. "The last couple of days, he's been re-enacting (the fall) with his spotty dog stuffed animal — it's his way of processing it."
Nathan, who has high-functioning autism, often likes to go on walks and go exploring, rather than play with toys, but his fall now leaves him with a fear of the dark and a fear of falling, Poirier said.
"I'm scared to go in old houses," Nathan said.
While Nathan's staple comes out Monday, Poirier is determined for someone to take responsibility and close the building to the public.
Poirier has been back to the site twice since the accident, and though she said the on-duty park ranger agreed to close the door to the building, nothing has been done.
"(The park ranger) said that he closed it, and the wind must have blown the door open," she said. "But there's a huge hole in the door — the wind couldn't blow it open unless they boarded the hole up."
State Department of Conservation and Recreation spokeswoman Wendy Fox said that while the grounds are maintained by the state, and there are two full-time employees on the grounds, the park supervisor isn't responsible for boarding up buildings. The park supervisor could not be reached for comment yesterday evening.
Fox said it's "unclear" how the building was left wide open, but that the DCR is working out a lease agreement with Tara Wilson of Andover, who plans to restore the buildings into a $2 million private health and wellness center in the next three to five years. Wilson couldn't be reached by press time.
Poirier said the barn has many hazards, including a large hole in the floor with an easily removable, temporary cover. The Coachman house, adjacent to the barn, had been vandalized, and broken glass lies on the ground.
"It looks like a building that isn't open," Fox said. "There's debris piled around it — it's not a tourist attraction."
But Poirier said the building should be boarded closed, or that there needs to be signage around the property, warning Maudslay visitors that the area is unsafe.
"I just want other people to watch out for this," she said. "It could happen to anybody."
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