The organs of a 13-year-old boy who died after falling through a roof helped to improve the lives of up to five other youngsters, an inquest in Dublin has been told.
Dublin City Coroners Court heard Darren McNally of Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, was playing on the roof of a supermarket storage shed with three friends when the accident happened in September last year.
He became unconscious after he fell 18 feet through a Perspex sheet to the ground below. He died in Dublin's Beaumont Hospital six days later from severe head injuries.
The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, yesterday commended Darren's parents, Olivia and Ray McNally, for their generosity at such a traumatic time.
He said: "Beaumont Hospital have written that at the time of Darren's death, you granted consent for organ harvesting. They said four or five patients have benefited as a result."
Darren's friend, Alan Brady (14), told the inquest they had all been at the credit union's 40th anniversary party in the town on September 21st, 2003.
They went down a lane off the main street and into a yard. At the top of some steps they saw a pallet stacked against the wall of a shed. Alan said four of them climbed up on the Perspex and galvanised steel roof to play."The game of tig was to run from one roof to another," he said.
The inquest heard one of the boys had walked on the Perspex and it had cracked. Alan said Darren had been jumping on the roof, he didn't think he saw the Perspex piece and he fell down on to the floor.
Darren was brought to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Co Louth, but was later transferred to Beaumont. Dr Farrell ruled it was an accidental death. He said it was not a legal requirement but he would inform the health and safety authorities about the accident at the shed as it was in the public's interest. - (PA)