Betty Cawley:ROAD SAFETY advocate Betty Cawley has died, aged 52, as result of injuries she sustained four years ago in a car crash in which her 22-year-old daughter Errin died.
Both women were travelling in a car on the M50 with two other passengers when a car travelling in the opposite direction crossed the grass division between the lanes and crashed into them.
Betty Cawley suffered serious injuries and was unable to attend her daughter's funeral. Her health deteriorated recently and she died at the Mater hospital, Dublin.
The driver of the second car was tried for dangerous driving and received a four-month sentence.
Speaking at Ms Cawley's funeral Mass, Fr Joe McLoughlin, curate of St Patrick's Church, Corduff, said that she had endured suffering in a "very brave and heroic way" over the past four years. Nurses treating her at the Mater had been amazed at her fighting spirit.
He also described her as a party animal who loved being involved in local shows and someone who loved to have friends calling to her house for a chat.
Betty Allen was born in 1956 in Chapelizod, Dublin, and attended Mount Sackville school. In 1980 she married Larry Cawley with whom she had three children; they separated 14 years later.
A year ago she participated in the Road Safety Authority's TV campaign "Crashed Lives" which features true-life accounts of road tragedy as told by victims who live with the consequences every day.
At the campaign launch last year she recalled the Sunday morning in November 2004 when her daughter Errin called to her home to drive Betty's son Evan and his friend to a martial arts class at Dublin City University. She and her daughter then planned to go shopping.
"I don't remember the impact. I don't remember anything except looking up, sitting in the car, the creak of the metal, the smell of the steam, the smell of burning rubber, the awful silence except the noise of the car.
"At that stage Errin's head was on my shoulder. There was blood bubbling from her mouth. She was trying desperately to breathe. I tried to turn, but the dashboard had collapsed on my legs, so I couldn't turn to hug her."
Firemen had to cut the roof off the vehicle to remove the injured women.
Betty was taken to the Mater hospital. She had massive internal injuries and it was feared she would not survive. Her sternum and ribs were broken; she lost most of her bowel and her spleen.
Dangerous driving cost her daughter's life. "What people don't understand, and I wish young people could understand, is how their parents, their family and their friends would feel if they were lost in a collision."
She remembered Errin as a safe driver: "She was very cautious. She never ever had, or would have taken, a whiff of a glass of wine when she was driving.
"She never went over the speed limit. She insisted that morning that both boys in the back put on their seat belts, which is why they are alive. That's also why I am alive."
She is survived by her daughter Lindsey, son Evan, their father Larry, her mother Liz and brother Martin.
Betty Cawley: born 1956; died December 13th, 2008