Horror crash driver ‘off his head’ on drink
THE driver of a car in which three people died, after it crashed into a vehicle carrying a family to a Christmas festival, was more than four times over the alcohol limit.
The three men who died were burnt beyond recognition and had to be identified by comparing their DNA with samples from family members, an inquest in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, has heard.
The 22-year-old driver of a Volkswagen Golf, which was on the wrong side of the road when it hit a Citroen Picasso carrying a family of six, was found to have a high level of alcohol in his system as well as cocaine and other drugs.
The deputy State pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, concluded that his ability to drive would have been ‘seriously impaired’.
The driver, Eamon Dixon, of Abbeyside, Dungarvan, was killed instantly, as were his passengers Kenneth O’Sullivan, 39, of Blackpool, Cork, and Michael Tobin, 38, from Abbeyside in Dungarvan, and previously of Old Parish.
Mr O’Sullivan was the owner of the car.
Mr Dixon’s father, Barry Foley, said he got a call from his son at about 9am on the day of the crash. ‘He sounded off his head. He wanted me to go on the beer for the day, and I said no,’ he said.
The crash happened at Kildangan, Military Road, Dungarvan, on the morning of December 4, 2016. Mary Bermingham, who was the front-seat passenger in the other car involved, said her vehicle was travelling towards Kilmeaden, where she and her partner, Gary Fenton, and her four children were due to visit the Santa train.
Mr Fenton was driving and, near Dungarvan, Ms Bermingham saw a small car approaching. ‘The car was completely on our side of the road, driving towards us. In a split second it had crashed into us,’ she said. She passed out and, when she came to, ‘I heard screaming in our car and Gary was unconscious’.
She couldn’t move and saw people outside, who had been around their car, going back to their own vehicles. She shouted: ‘Are you going to leave us to die?’ The fire brigade splashed water on their car. She suffered two broken legs, a fractured arm, fractured ribs and internal bleeding, but made a full recovery, as did her partner and children, she told the coroner, Dr Eoin Maughan.
Garda Robert Falvey gave evidence of using a fire extinguisher to put out the flames, but said it had little effect.
The jury returned verdicts of accidental death in relation to all three victims, with death being the result of multiple traumatic injuries.