A thirteen-year-old boy who died when he was hit by a sliotar in the neck died from bleeding around the brain caused by a tear in a neck artery, an inquest in Kilkenny heard on Friday.
The coroner, solicitor Tim Kiely, said he did not believe that if Harry Byrne, of Gowran, Co Kilkenny, had been wearing a helmet at the time of the accident it would have prevented the injury.
He said a “genuinely unfortunate accidental injury” had caused the death of a boy he could see from comments made afterwards had been a “fantastic child and a fantastic son” who had been loved by “many, many people”.
The inquest heard the accident occurred at lunchtime in St Kieran’s School, in Kilkenny city, on Monday, November 8th, 2021.
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Mr Kiely read out a deposition from a student who was in Harry’s year in the school and who said the students were on a pitch at the school talking and chatting, and had then started playing hurling.
He had hit the ball towards the goal without looking and hit Harry, who was about five metres away, on the neck. Harry, who said afterwards he was “fine” but had a headache, said he would go and get the ball but fell on to the ground when he turned to do so, the inquest heard.
Mr Kiely said he had viewed CCTV footage of the incident that confirmed what was said by the student.
Teacher Simon Reidy said he was supervising the lunchbreak when a boy had come up to him and said Harry had been hit on the head and was on the ground.
He went to the pitch where he saw Harry lying about 20 yards behind the goal, with a group of boys standing around him. One of them had put Harry in the recovery position.
Mr Reidy said Harry was making a groaning noise and appeared unconscious, and that he could feel a pulse and hear him breathing. He was told by a student that he had hit a ball behind him towards the goal, not knowing Harry was there, and had hit him on the neck.
Harry, the boy had said, fell, got up, said “you hit me”, went to get up the ball, “wobbled” and fell to the ground again, according to Mr Reidy.
Mr Reidy said colleagues fetched a defibrillator while he performed CPR and that the defibrillator said no shock was required. Mr Reidy continued to give aid to Harry while paramedics, who had been called, gave advice over the phone. The paramedics arrived after about ten minutes, worked on Harry at the pitch and then took him by ambulance to hospital.
Gda Ashley Lowery of Kilkenny Garda station told the inquest of going to St Luke’s Hospital on the morning of November 9th after being told of the death of a boy who had suffered a blow to his neck from a sliotar. Harry had been pronounced dead at 6.20am on November 9th and his body was formally identified by his mother at 9.50am, he said.
Mr Kiely said the postmortem report from Prof Maureen O’Sullivan found that Harry had died from a subarachnoid haemorrhage secondary to traumatic vertebral artery dissection.
He said he had spoken to Prof O’Sullivan, who was not in attendance, and that Harry’s death had been the result of an internal injury caused by being hit on the neck. He did not believe a helmet would have prevented what had happened. He made a finding of accidental death.
Mr Kiely expressed his sympathies to Harry’s parents, family and friends, and said he could see from the comments made after his death that Harry had been a “wonderful young boy” whose death had caused great shock to all who knew him.
Insp Alma Molloy said that, on behalf of An Garda Síochána, she also wanted to express her sympathies to Harry’s family and friends.
Harry is survived by his parents, Fergal and Annette; brothers and sister Jake, Aimee and Sam; and grandparents Teresa Byrne, and Martin and Mary Nolan. He was a talented hurler who played for the Young Irelands GAA club and had tried out for the county team.
