NATIONAL School principal teacher, Mr Frank Rogers (42), and his three year old son, Cillian, died from carbon monoxide poisoning, the inquest into their deaths has confirmed.
The Meath County Coroner's Court last night heard how Mrs Sandra Rogers discovered the bodies of her husband and son in a car in a garage adjacent to the family home at Balreask, Old Navan, at 9.15 am. on August 31st last.
Mrs Rogers said she had dressed her son in slippers and a dressing gown at 8.20 a.m. on Friday, August 30th, before going to work. Her husband was asleep.
She spoke to him by phone later that morning and they arranged that he would collect her from work at 7 p.m.
When he did not arrive, she went home at approximately 7.30 pm. She said there was no sign of either of them and she telephoned a number of friends, but no one had any information.
Mrs Rogers went to a function in the Beechmount Hotel and returned at 11.30 p.m. She said her husband and son were not in the house.
At 3 a.m., her sister, Ms Jennifer Collins, telephoned the Garda station. Ms Collins stayed with Mrs Rogers until 5 a.m.
Mrs Rogers said she lay on the bed until 8 a.m. and then sat by the telephone waiting for news.
At 9.15 am., she decided to check the garage. When she lifted the garage door she saw Frank in the front of the car and Cillian in the back. She telephoned the gardai.
Sgt Oliver McKenna, Navan, said he went to Mr and Mrs Rogers's home at 9.30 a.m., after gardai received a call saying that two bodies had been found in a car. In the garage he saw a blue Peugeot car.
In the front he found the slumped body of a man and in the rear there was the body of a child in an upright position in a child seat. Both bodies were cold and `his safety belts' a fixed.
Sergeant McKenna saw a hose pipe connected from the exhaust in through a back door of the car. He said the bodies were removed to Our Lady's Hospital in Navan.
Pathologist Dr Joseph Stewart said blood samples showed carbon monoxide saturation levels of 78 per cent and 71 per cent for Frank and Cillian, respectively.
He formed the opinion death was due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
The County Coroner, Mr John Lacey, and Garda Supt Eamon Courtney expressed sympathies to the Rogers family on what they said was a particularly tragic event.