TWO young women who died in a tragic road traffic accident on the N52 close to Delvin were “entirely blameless” in a fatal series of events the Coroner for Westmeath stated at the double inquest, last week.
Returning rulings of accidental death at the inquests into the deaths of Amy Sheridan (24) and Laura Finnucane (38), Mr. Raymond Mahon, Coroner for Westmeath said that the loss of the two young women was a tragedy.
THREE VEHICLES
The fatal accident happened on the N52 on the 8 October, 2016. Mr. Mahon, presiding over the Coroner’s Court directed all present that the purpose of the hearing was not to apportion blame. Throughout the inquest, a number of witnesses were deposed, providing expert forensic and medical testimony regarding the tragic road accident which involved three vehicles.
Eyewitness testimony recounted that the first impact had happened when a car being driven by Christine O’Higgins from the Mullingar direction had collided with a lorry travelling from the Delvin direction.
The second and fatal impact occurred when the lorry then collided with the car being driven by Amy Sheridan, in which Laura Finnucane was a passenger. The inquest heard garda testimony that it would not have been possible for Ms. Sheridan or the lorry driver to avoid the second collision.
FIRE BRIGADE CRASHED
Paramedics Eamon McLoughlin and James Smith were the first responders to reach the scene and Mr. Smith said in his evidence that they were at the scene for almost an hour, certainly forty-five minutes before further medical emergency services arrived.
He discovered subsequently that the fire brigade dispatched to the scene had crashed on route.
Mr. Smith said that he noted upon arrival at the scene that the lorry and a car had collided and the car contained two females. His colleague, Mr. McLoughlin went to assist and he went to another vehicle a little way up, where he met the female driver, Ms. O’Higgins, with an elderly female passenger who was in the back seat and a male who was in shock. The back seat passenger was having difficulty breathing but while he was attending these patients, Mr. McLoughlin sent for him to assist with CPR for the other patients.
“We were practically left on our own. It seemed like an eternity. It was a lack of resources. It was a roasting hot day. It was a very hard decision when I had to leave those three people to assist Eamon,” he said.
Mr. McLoughlin said that when he arrived to assist Ms. Sheridan and Ms. Finnucane, he found Ms. Sheridan unresponsive and she had no pulse. He said that both women were trapped in the vehicle and there was no sign of life when he examined Miss Finnucane.
Ms. Sheridan was taken to Midlands Regional Hospital, Mullingar, where she died from her injuries.
Garda Joe Doyle was the Public Services Vehicle inspector who examined the vehicles post collision and his evidence was that both the cars driven by Ms. Higgins and Ms. Sheridan were in a serviceable condition and the lorry, driven by delivery man Mr. Petrowska had no faults to report.
LORRY DRIVER COULD NOT AVOID COLLISION
The Forensic Collision investigator, Garda Thomas Brennan told the inquest that the conclusions of his examination of the scene were that the car driven by Ms.O’ Higgins had crossed the centre line and struck the lorry driven from the Delvin side by Mr. Petrowska.
The impact had caused the tyre of the lorry to lock and Mr. Petrowska would not have been able to control it as it crossed the line and collided with the car being driven from the Mullingar direction by Ms. Sheridan.
Mr. Petrowska, he said, “could not have taken any further action to avoid collision” after the first impact, due to the extensive damage to the wheel of the lorry.
TECHNICAL FAILURE
Garda Brennan was questioned a number of times by the mother of Amy Sheridan as he gave his evidence. Mrs. Marie Sheridan asked what had happened to the measurements recorded at the scene on the day of the accident and Garda Brennan explained that the data had failed to download into the system. He said this had never happened to him before or since.
The court heard that there is no reason a laptop could not be provided for the car of a garda carrying out the examination of a collision, in order to download data at the scene.
Christine O’Higgins, who, the inquest was told, had received an eight month suspended sentence and a disqualification for careless driving causing death in relation to this incident, was present in court and provided a deposition in which she stated that she was driving from Mullingar with her parents on the day of the accident. She said that she has no recollection of the collision, only of hearing a bang.
“Please God you will never have to go through what we have. Remorse is a big word,” Mrs. Sheridan said after being told by Ms. O’Higgins that she could not recall any distraction to her driving on the day of the accident.
Pathologist Dr. Miriam Walsh said that Amy Sheridan died as a result of massive intracranial trauma secondary to a road traffic collision and Laura Finnucane died from flail chest injuries, secondary to thoracic injuries secondary to a road traffic accident.
Mr. Mahon summarised the extensive technical and witness testimony in returning his verdict and said that it was “regrettable that there was a serious defect in gathering the evidence.”
Mr. Mahon, Inspector Jarlath Folan on behalf of An Garda Siochana and the members of the jury extended their sympathies to the Sheridan and Finnucane families.