General News
25 September, 2024
Gone but never forgotten, doting dad pays tribute to his late son
Denis Comerford says the memory of his son Peter lives on through his daughters.
About six months after his son Peter had died in a sudden accident at Mount Isa Mines in 2000, Denis Comerford was still in deep grief.
Peter’s partner, Cilla, and his three daughters had moved into the Comerford home at Sunset so she could focus on her studies in primary education.
It was a Sunday morning and Mr Comerford was wandering the hallway that leads to his dining room and kitchen when he was stopped by his four-year-old granddaughter, Jessica.
She was trying to shuffle a deck of cards and looked up at him with a bright-eyed grin.
“Wanna play poker, grandad?” she asked.
It was only a small moment in life – but one that more than two decades on still resonates profoundly.
“It was probably that moment that snapped me out of my grief,” Mr Comerford recalled.
“I am not sure why, but I started thinking there are things that need to be done, there are kids here that need to be taken care of, and we had to keep on living our lives.”
He sat down with his granddaughter, and they shuffled the deck together for a game of poker.
Jessica now lives in Townsville, but whenever they are together, playing poker is a tradition the pair have continued to this day.
Peter was working as part of a team upgrading the Sinter Plant at the lead smelter on July 14, 2000, when he was struck by a bearing housing assembly that fell from an overhead crane.
The North West Star reported at the time that Peter was treated at the scene by paramedics but was declared dead by the time he arrived at Mount Isa Base Hospital.
He was 31 years old.
“I can remember getting a call from Peter’s partner in the afternoon of the incident sometime and I can remember her voice – she was in a state of shock – things after that are a bit of blur,” Mr Comerford explained.
“I remember my wife and I being on our knees on the cement floor at the Mount Isa Hospital with an open body bag laying in front of us because we needed to identify our son.
“I remember the lady doctor coming into the room and she was in a state of shock also.”
Mr Comerford said the funeral at Good Shepherd was overflowing – there were at least 200 people standing outside unable to find a seat – many of them young men from the rugby league community wanting to pay tribute to his son.
Peter played for Wanderers in the forward pack – “he played with a heart that was 15kg too heavy for the rest of his body,” Mr Comerford joked.
“He could do a lot of damage in the games – the only trouble was the damage was usually to his own body.”
Wanderers still pay tribute to Peter with the Rookie of the Year trophy named in his honour.
Denis became a life member of the club in 2020.
Mr Comerford and his wife Desley joined about 200 others at the John Middlin Centre last week for the Miners Memorial service.
A computer scientist and a bookmaker – Mr Comerford is a man comfortable with numbers and statistics.
He told North West Weekly he believed that memorials were important so that the mining community could focus on two different statistics.
“We need to always be attempting to improve the statistics on mine safety so none of this happens to other families,” he said.
“And I think one of the best speeches I ever heard in favour of the memorial was made by John Moran – he stood up and just read out the name of every bloke who has died at Mount Isa Mines.
“We shouldn’t ever lose sight that these men were not just numbers on a list or statistics on a spreadsheet – each of these men had families and friends and parents – they were people, and it is important we keep all these men in our mind and our memory.”