Danger road is like ‘Russian roulette’
Coroner speaks out after crash claims three lives
A CORONER yesterday described a stretch of road as ‘a Russian roulette route’ after three generations of a family were killed there in an accident.
Mary Ann Wilson, 67, Marcella Wilson, 39, and sevenyear-old Sean Wilson, all from the Belmullet area of Co. Mayo, were killed when their car collided with an articulated lorry on September 11 last year on the N17.
Coroner Patrick O’Connor yesterday said the triple tragedy highlighted the dangers at the junctions on the N17, particularly between Knock and Ballindine.
He urged Mayo County Council, the Road Safety Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland to examine the road’s junctions including the one at Claremorris where the triple tragedy happened. ‘All drivers aren’t stopping at the junctions,’ Mr O’Connor said. ‘They are driving on to the hard shoulder without stopping. They are treating the junctions as slip roads. It is extremely dangerous’.
After a jury returned a verdict of accidental death, Mr O’Connor described the collision as ‘an unspeakable horror’ and expressed his sincere sympathies to the family..
The Coroner’s Court in Castlebar heard how Marcella Wilson was taking her family to Galway in her Citroen C3 when the collision happened.
Schoolboy Sean was propelled from the car by the force of the impact and the engine was ripped from the vehicle.
All three suffered traumatic head injuries and died at the scene.
In a statement read to the court, lorry driver Mark Tierney said he remembered passing a junction and hearing a loud bang which shook his lorry and trailer.
‘I thought I’d lost wheels or something – a blowout’, he stated.
When he ran to the back of the lorry, Mr Tierney said he saw the schoolboy lying on the road.
‘He was lying at the back of the lorry,’ he added. ‘The smell, the steam, the engine on the road, Seanie lying on the road.’
Mr Tierney later collected the child’s toys from the roadside and put them beside him. He said: ‘I said a little prayer for him.’
Kenneth Groarke was driving from Galway to Claremorris and said he saw the Wilsons’ C3 approach the Old Ballindine Road junction outside Claremorris shortly after 12.30pm but it had failed to stop.
‘It appeared to creep slowly out on the road. It’s like she [Marcella Wilson] didn’t see the truck at all,’ he told the hearing.
‘When the car crept out the truck hit it almost immediately.
‘The truck hit the front and righthand side of the car. The right rear door popped open with the force of the impact. The child in the rear was thrown up and out of the car.’
The inquest heard the lorry driver, who was employed by Killacroy Logistics, was fully complaint with tachograph driver requirements at the time. The condition of either vehicle involved did not contribute to the crash.
Sergeant Gabriel McLoughlin, PSV inspector for Mayo, said it was apparent from an examination of the scene that the car travelled on to the N17 and hit the passenger side of the trailer.
The court heard the two frontseat passengers were wearing seatbelts but Sean was flung from the vehicle as the result of the incorrect fitting of a rear seat-belt.
Each of the victims suffered what consultant Dr Fadel Bennani from Mayo University Hospital, as ‘traumatic head injuries’.
‘Boy was lying at back of the lorry’