By Claire Corrigan
The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) is com- memorated on the third Sunday of November each year – to remember the many millions killed and injured on the world’s roads, together with their families, friends and many others who are also affected. It is also a day on which we thank the emergency services and reflect on the tremendous burden and cost of this daily continuing disaster to families, communities and countries, and on ways to halt it.
Patricia Geoghegan from Delvin bravely choose to share her story of losing her 19-year-old son Andrew in a car crash. “He was a very happy young lad. Very chatty. Loved everybody, neighbours old and young. He loved his boxing. He went boxing every Monday and Thursday in Navan. He loved Muhammad Ali. He loved Christmas. The lights, the fire and just being together. I used to have lie down with him to get him to go to sleep before Santa would come and he’d be up at 6am and waiting for his brother and sister to get up. He was the life and the soul of the house being the youngest. ”
After completing his Leaving Cert, Andrew went on to study Civil Engineering at Dundalk Institute of Technology and it was while returning back from college home day that an incident that would change Patricia’s life forever took place.
Patricia said that the crash that claimed her son’s life happened on a straight part of the road not far from his home. “Andrew was coming out of Delvin and the other driver was coming from Athboy. He hit a bump in the road and lost control of the car and drove straight into my son.”
The other driver and his nine-year-old son sustained only minor injuries. “My son took the full impact in a head on collision.”
“The Gardai rang us and said he had been in an accident and had visible injuries to his elbow and his leg but he was all right.” However they were unaware at that point that he sustained catastrophic internal injuries. “They told us to meet him in Mullingar and we met him there but he had passed away,” the distraught mother said, breaking into tears as she does many times throughout the interview, as she recalls the dark times.
The family rushed to Mullingar to meet Andrew after seeing an ambulance speed by. “I could see no one in accident and emergency and I went into every cubicle looking for him. He wasn’t in any of them. One of the nurses asked us if we were looking for somebody and I told her I was looking for Andrew Geoghegan and she told us the news that Andrew was not good.”
Tearfully Patricia reads a letter she received from an English woman who was the first to come upon the crash scene. “I stayed with him until the ambulance arrived. As a nurse, I was frustrated that all I could do was hold his hand and talk to him. He told me of his love of boxing. I promised him a trip to my home in Liverpool when there was any boxing on at the arena here. He told me he had a girlfriend and also about his college course. He was very anxious to let his mother know where he was. This young man showed great dignity and was a credit to you.”
The mother-of-three says that life has been tough since that day on 26 October, 2010. “There is not a morning or night that goes by that I don’t think about him. It’s six years now and I’m the same.”
Last year Patricia discovered the Irish Road Victims Association (IRVA) after seeing a poster for the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims in Delvin church. “I met Donna and we have been in contact ever since and met each other. It’s a great support and helps families not to feel so isolated and alone. I’m not the only mother who is suffering. It’s happening every day of the week.”
Following the accident Patricia said she is very grateful for the support she has received. “I have to say that Gardaí Paul and Damian and Sergeant Mick were a great support to us even up to his inquest. Dr. Richard Lynch was hugely supportive too and I’d be lost without my sister Maria who also lost her son.”
Patricia also praised her husband of 44 years Paddy as well as her two children Nicola and John. “My son and daughter’s don’t talk about him but they still miss him and are hurting that he’s not here.”
COURT CASE
The case took three years to go to court before it was finally heard in Tullamore after being adjourned twice where the driver of the other vehicle was banned from driving for 20 years and received three years of a suspended jail sentence. “To me, we got the life sentence. I cried the whole way home from Tullamore knowing he wouldn’t serve one day while my son lay in the graveyard.”
As a family Andrew and his parents travelled to Florida, New York, Morrocco and Tunisia and Spain. “We travelled 700 miles to the Sahara desert and when we got to the tents, there was a beautiful sunset. It was the most wonderful holiday we ever had. I’m glad he got to see so many parts of the world in his short life,” she recalls.
“I want to speak about it to make people more aware and to slow down and be cautious and I think the speed limit on the Delvin to Athboy road needs to be reduced.”
Patricia had some words of hope for people who may be in the early stages of grief after losing a loved one. “Everything is a number to you in the early process of grief but some morning you will wake up and you will hear the birds singing. In the last while my coping skills have improved and I want to give hope to people out there. It’s not going to start tomorrow but as time moves on you’ll hear the birds singing.”
The Irish Road Victims Association (IRVA) will be hosting a memorial service for Road Traffic Victims in the Belvedere and Uisneach suites, Bloomfield House Hotel, Mullingar at 2pm on 20 November.
