IT WAS a “miracle” more people were not killed when a crash involving two cars, at speeds of up to 180km/h, killed one of the drivers, an inquest has been told.
Two high-performance cars, an Audi TT and an Audi A5, clipped off each other while being driven at high speed along a regional road between Cashel and Rosegreen in south Tipperary on July 12th, 2008. Raymond Cunningham (24), Tullamaine, Fethard, Co Tipperary, was killed.
He was travelling alone while the other car involved in the crash, driven by Joe O’Leary (38), became airborne and crashed into the gable end of a house, pinning a young boy underneath it.
Jack Costello (9) was at a family gathering at his grandmother’s house at Price’s Lot, Cashel. He was saved when his father, John Costello, used a forklift truck to lift the car off him.
The boy has since made a partial recovery, yesterday’s inquest into Mr Cunningham’s death heard at Clonmel courthouse. His grandmother’s house was deemed to be unsafe and had to be demolished.
Two teenage boys – O’Leary’s son Raymie and his friend David McGeer – were passengers in O’Leary’s car and were injured. David, who was then 13, said he met Raymie in Cashel on that Saturday night and they were later being driven home by O’Leary. When they got to the roundabouts on the Rosegreen road, they saw the other car coming from the Fethard direction. Raymie said “that’s a class car” to his father.
O’Leary “said nothing but looked at Raymie” and then drove behind the other car at high speed. It was after an attempted overtaking manoeuvre by O’Leary that the two cars came into contact.
O’Leary was jailed last year after admitting dangerous driving causing death and dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm.
“The speeds were phenomenal in this instance,” forensic collision investigator Sgt John Moore told the inquest.
Coroner Paul Morris described the driving by both O’Leary and the late Mr Cunningham as “pure madness” on the night in question. “Nearly about half a dozen of them could have been killed,” he said.
Mr Cunningham was thrown from the car after it was clipped by O’Leary’s car, causing it to spin out of control, landing on its side. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Pathologist Dr Robert Tait concluded after a postmortem examination that death was due to “multiple injuries” including extensive bleeding into the brain and the chest cavity, consistent with a road accident.
The jury in the inquest returned a verdict of accidental death, consistent with the medical evidence.
Solicitor for the Cunningham family Peter O’Reilly said it was “pure happenstance” that the drivers of two similar cars were on the same stretch of road together as they did not know each other.
“It makes it even more extraordinary,” the coroner said when he heard that.
“I have to register how appalled myself and the jury are at the speeds both parties were going on the evening in question and the potential for total havoc.
“It’s a miracle that more people weren’t more seriously injured or fatally injured,” he said.