The inquest into the death of a 14-year-old girl who was struck by a car in Limerick city three years ago, has heard she died of a head injury as a result of the collision.<\/p>\n
Limerick Coroner’s Court was told that Savannah Calvert from Garryowen, was running across the road at Bank Place on the night of 16 August 2023, when the incident occurred.<\/p>\n
Before Stephen Bourke, the driver of the vehicle that struck Savannah, gave evidence by video link, Coroner John McNamara addressed the Calvert family.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the difficulty of the situation and the emotion in the courtroom, and asked them to remain composed during Mr Bourke’s evidence.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard that Mr Bourke was an unaccompanied learner driver of a red Kia Ceed with “three or four months” driving experience at the time.<\/p>\n
He told the inquest that he was driving into the city to get a pizza at around 11.30pm.<\/p>\n
He said he was driving behind a Volkswagen Passat which braked at Bank Place when two young people ran out onto the road.<\/p>\n
Mr Bourke said he applied the brakes and then moved off when the Volkswagen Passat also drove off, because he thought the teenagers had crossed the road.<\/p>\n
‘It seemed she had made a decision to run back’<\/p>\n
He told the inquest that there was not any way for him to avoid hitting the girl with his car. “It seemed she had made a decision to run back,” he said.<\/p>\n
The driver was asked by barrister Antoinette Simon BL, representing the Calvert family, why he had driven around the corner before bringing his car to a halt on Rutland Street.<\/p>\n
He said he was concerned another vehicle might collide with his car if he remained at the scene of the collision on Bank Place.<\/p>\n
The Calvert family were asked if they wished to hear a letter of apology written by Mr Bourke, but they declined.<\/p>\n
The depositions of three young people, who were with Savannah on the night of the collision, were read out.<\/p>\n
One teenager said he had run across the road and Savannah ran after him.<\/p>\n
The others described how the 14-year-old followed her friend across the road and when they shouted “car”, she stopped in the middle of the road and tried to turn back but was struck by the vehicle.<\/p>\n
The children described hearing the bang when she was hit by the car and then seeing her lying on the ground.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard that the interviews with the children were taken by specially trained garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
The inquest was told that garda\u00ed were alerted to a road traffic collision involving a pedestrian at around 11.30pm and the first garda\u00ed at the scene administer CPR on Savannah until an ambulance arrived.<\/p>\n
Mr Bourke identified himself to garda\u00ed as the driver of the car that struck the girl, the inquest was told.<\/p>\n
He underwent drug and alcohol testing at the scene, and neither was detected in his system.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard that he provided his provisional driver licence to garda\u00ed and was subsequently issued with fixed charge penalty notices for driving unaccompanied and driving without L plates which he paid.<\/p>\n
The inquest also heard in garda evidence that Mr Bourke was very worried and concerned for the girl and asked garda\u00ed at the scene if they had any updates on her condition.<\/p>\n
Dr Anthony O\u2019Connell, an emergency physician at University Hospital Limerick told the inquest Savannah arrived by ambulance to the emergency department 10 minutes after midnight.<\/p>\n
He told the inquest that her head injuries were extensive and catastrophic and they could not be treated by surgery. She died a few hours later.<\/p>\n
‘Head injury consistent with this accident’ – pathologist<\/p>\n
Pathologist Marcell Szasz told the inquest that the cause of death was “a head injury consistent with this accident”.<\/p>\n
Evidence was also given by Garda Mike Reddy, a PSV inspector with over 30 years\u2019 experience, who examined the red Kia Ceed involved in the collision.<\/p>\n
Garda Reddy said there was a dent on the A pillar, the front vertical support of the car’s windscreen, which he described as “very strong and unforgiving to contact even at low speeds”.<\/p>\n
He said there was damage to the windscreen, and the wing mirror on the driver\u2019s side had been knocked off.<\/p>\n
Garda Reddy said there was no evidence of any faults with the vehicle that could have caused the collision.<\/p>\n
Evidence at the inquest at Limerick Coroner\u2019s Court which is sitting in Kilmallock is due to conclude tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The inquest into the death of a 14-year-old girl who was struck by a car in Limerick city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-539746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}