An inquest into the death of a 22-year-old rally driver in Co Kerry over four years ago has heard details of the desperate efforts to try and save him after his car overturned in a flooded stream.<\/p>\n
Eoin McCarthy from Dunmanway, Co Cork, died during the fourth stage of the Killarney Forestry Rally at Mount Eagle near Castleisland on 20 February 2022.<\/p>\n
It was just his second time taking part in a rally.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard that Mr McCarthy had been competing in the event in a red Honda Civic along with his co-driver, Daniel O’Brien, who was acting as a navigator.<\/p>\n
The Killarney Forestry Rally is an annual gravel stage motorsport event organised by the Killarney and District Motor Club.<\/p>\n
The rally forms part of Motorsport Ireland’s Forest Rally Championship.<\/p>\n
Weather conditions on the day of the 2022 edition of the rally had deteriorated and the rally took place two days after Storm Eunice for which Met \u00c9ireann had issued Status Red weather warnings.<\/p>\n
Footage of the incident was played for the Coroner for Cork City, Philip Comyn, at the opening of the inquest.<\/p>\n
The footage showed the car being driven through two bales of hay that were outlining the course as it approached a narrow bridge with no railings.<\/p>\n
The vehicle then veered off the bridge and ended up upside down on its roof in a flooded stream in the forest.<\/p>\n
Giving evidence via video-link today, Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster said Mr McCarthy had died after being suspended upside down inside the vehicle after it was submerged in water.<\/p>\n
Dr Bolster added this had led to a cardiac arrest and a chronic shortage of oxygen to the brain.<\/p>\n
She said there was no evidence of any lethal injuries to Mr McCarthy’s spine or significant trauma to his body.<\/p>\n
Daniel O’Brien told the coroner that he had been involved with the rallying community since the age of 12 and he was Mr McCarthy’s navigator on the day of the fatal incident.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Brien said this was his first time driving with Mr McCarthy.<\/p>\n
He said he and Mr McCarthy had completed courses in navigation and driving respectively allowing them to take part in the rally.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Brien told the inquest that the pair had completed the first three stages of the rally that morning and “the car was going well”.<\/p>\n
However, he said before the fourth stage of the rally, the “heavens had opened” and the surface had become “slimy”.<\/p>\n
He said the fact they were coming down an incline and there was surface water resulted in him calling “double caution” to Mr McCarthy on approach to the bridge.<\/p>\n
Mr O’Brien said they slowed their speed to around 15km\/h and as this happened, the car “dipped down to the left”.<\/p>\n
He said it then “flipped over completely very slowly” and “slid into the water”. He said there was a soft impact when the car hit the water.<\/p>\n
While Mr O’Brien was able to free himself, assistance was required to remove Mr McCarthy from the vehicle and CPR later had to be performed.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard that Mr McCarthy and Mr O’Brien set out on the fourth stage of the rally at 2.04pm and the car’s SOS alarm was raised just two minutes later.<\/p>\n
Mark Dolphin also gave evidence before the inquest and said he had 18 years of experience of both marshalling and competing in such events.<\/p>\n
He said he was the marshal stationed at location five on that day and the weather was “stormy and raining heavily”.<\/p>\n
Mr Dolphin told the inquest that, in his personal opinion and experience, the rally should not have gone ahead due to the heavy rain and inclement weather.<\/p>\n
He said branches falling from trees in the forest were of a particular safety concern.<\/p>\n
Mr Dolphin also said the incident had occurred in an area where there was no mobile phone coverage.<\/p>\n
He said after there was an eerie silence and after he heard ambulance sirens, he ran down to where the car had entered the water.<\/p>\n
He told the inquest that there was no way of knowing what exactly had happened before getting to the scene or to subsequently notify people about what happened given there was no mobile phone reception.<\/p>\n
Mr Dolphin also said one of the people who had come on the scene had to run up the road to find signal.<\/p>\n
The McCarthy family are well-known and heavily involved in the rally community, many of whom were present for the opening day of the inquest.<\/p>\n
Today, they paid tribute to Mr O’Brien for his efforts in trying to save Mr McCarthy, describing his actions in the aftermath of the incident as heroic.<\/p>\n
The inquest at Cork Courthouse on Washington Street continues tomorrow and is expected to hear from a total of 25 witnesses across four days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inquest into the death of a 22-year-old rally driver in Co Kerry over four years ago has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-590246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590246","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=590246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}