A Kerry man seemed to be asleep as he drove his car on the wrong side of the road, a witness told a court yesterday.
Mr Philip O'Sullivan (19) of Listry, Beaufort, Killarney, pleaded not guilty in Cork Circuit Criminal Court to dangerous driving causing the deaths of Mr Paul Kenneally (25), and four year old David Smiddy, at Burgess, Lower Killeagh, on the main Cork Youghal Road.
Mr William Forrest said he saw three pedestrians, one a child with a tricycle. He saw a car coming towards him on the wrong side of the road and thought he was going to turn into the junction. "The next thing he hit the people and I saw the man being thrown up into the air," he said.
Mr Catherine Harrington, a front seat passenger in her husband's car travelling from Cork with her two children, said she saw the car approaching on the wrong side and thought it was going into petrol station.
"I thought it was going to hit us. We swerved slightly to the right band as it passed on my left on the hard shoulder I saw the driver's face was very pale, his head was to the right side and his eyes were closed," she said.
Her husband screamed and she looked back. She got out of the car and saw two bodies on the ground. "I started running towards them and I saw a little boy running around on the grass verge saying `my daddy is dead'. I checked the two bodies for a pulse but there was none."
Mr Aidan Cahalane from Killorglin, who was a front seat passenger in Mr O'Sullivan's car, said he was dozing before the incident. He heard a roar and when he opened his eyes he saw a man and a child in front of the car and they were just about to hit them. He turned his head because he thought they would come in through the windscreen. The trial continues.