Riddle of the couple who drove off a pier
Man dies and woman swims to safety after car crashes
GARDAÍ were last night trying to piece together the circumstances that led to the death of a young man when the car he was in plunged into the sea.
A woman who was also in the Volkswagen saloon had a narrow escape, managing to get out and swim to safety.
The man has been named as Csaba Orsos, 31, from Hungary.
The woman was Marta Herda, 25, from Poland.
The pair worked together at a four-star Wicklow hotel.
There was confusion last night about the nature of their relationship.
One person who knew the pair said Mr Orsos and Ms Herda may have had a ‘brief dalliance’ but had never been in a proper relationship.
However, Mr Orsos’s brother, Zoltan, said it had been far more serious. He said his brother loved Ms Herda.
The pair were both employed as waiting staff at the Brooklodge Hotel in Wicklow. Ms Herda was being interviewed as a witness by gardaí yesterday evening.
She managed to escape from the car soon after it hit the water and was later taken to hospital.
Sources said that Ms Herda managed to alert a security man who was on the pier and was then brought to St Columcille’s Hospital
She was treated in hospital for shock
in Loughlinstown.
She was dripping wet after escaping from the car and climbing back onto the pier.
She was treated in hospital for shock and exposure before being released yesterday afternoon.
She went straight from hospital to Arklow Garda Station, where she gave gardaí a detailed statement about what happened.
The Garda sub-aqua team dived around the car early yesterday morning but rough and murky conditions hampered their search.
The dead man’s brother was comforted by friends on the pier while gardaí and the coast guard continued their search in bitter winds and snow for his brother. Emergency services also attended the scene and members of the Garda technical bureau arrived to carry out forensic analysis.
The dead man’s brother said: ‘I got a call from a friend this morning, someone who knows Marta, who said she was in the hospital and that my brother may be dead.
‘My brother loved her,’ he told the Herald newspaper.
As the car was hauled out of the water with a crane shortly before 3pm, relatives of Mr Orsos were called to identify his body, which was found south of Arklow.
A person who had been out walk- ing on the beach found the body and alerted gardaí.
Duty manager at the four- star Brooklodge Hotel, Pawal Sosnowski, yesterday confirmed that both had been employed there.
‘We are very concerned about the situation that happened this morn- ing in Arklow,’ he said. ‘I know that there was two people in the car and one managed to escape and that person is being treated at Loughlinstown Hospital.’
It is understood that Ms Herda, who has been living Pairc na Saile in Arklow for the past two years, came to Ireland around five years ago.
She worked in the Arklow Bay Hotel in 2008 but has been working in Brooklodge Hotel since 2009.
Last night Arklow mayor Peter Dempsey said: ‘It’s an awful tragedy. The town is devastated over this. We have had tragedies in the area over the last couple of years, it’s just awful and it compounds the fact of how fragile life is.’
He said the steel barrier which the car went through before hitting the water had been erected in recent times as a safety precaution.
Local councillor Tommy Annesley said: ‘The Polish and Hungarian community is in shock here they are just devastated.
‘It’s just horrific that it happened in Arklow.’