Besides the 400-plus who die on Irish roads every year, there are thousands who suffer injury or trauma. Patrick Logue reports
Yet another report about the carnage on our roads, this extract is now consigned to the newspaper archives and forgotten by most. Not so for Declan O'Donoghue. He was the seventh person, the only survivor.
He witnessed the deaths of six others, including his uncle and aunt who died by his side in his Volkswagen Passat car. They were on their way home from a weekend visit. Declan had offered them a lift.
The harrowing details of that day will always be with him. His injuries kept him in hospital for three weeks and forced him ot miss the funerals of his uncle and aunt.
"For Declan, it's still a hugely fresh wound," says Adrian McCarthy, who has relived the event with Declan as part of an upcoming documentary. "It's left a huge mark on him. He's still struggling to get over it. By talking to us it brought him back to hell." In the documentary - due to be broadcast on RTÉ in the spring - Declan recalls that fateful Saturday night.
He stayed conscious throughout the crash and witnessed the six horrific deaths. First the windscreen smashed. Then the lights and radio faded. Then the extraordinary silence. "What he saw surrounding him, well, you can only imagine," says McCarthy.
Hundreds of miles away in a rehabilitation clinic in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, Paul O'Flaherty is going through a similar struggle. The 20-year-old was a back-seat passenger and was wearing his seat belt when the car crashed at a crossroads near Listowel, Co Kerry, last August.
The crash didn't even warrant a brief news story, but it changed this young man's life irrevocably. He remains in a wheelchair in hospital, with the prospect of staying there for at least another two months.
The crash has meant inevitable changes in his life. He had to sleep in a downstairs room on his last visit home, while a normally straightforward visit to a local pub ended in Paul having to leave because the facilities did not suit his wheelchair.
Yet his case is not uncommon. Eight of the 12 people beside him in the spinal injuries ward in Dún Laoghaire have ended up there because of motor-related crashes. Four are under the age of 22.
Only last month three men from Paul's village of Moyvane, all under the age of 35, died in a one-car crash in the area. A seriously ill fourth man was taken to Cork's University Hospital.
The tediously slow rate of reduction in road death figures is well documented. The death toll has averaged 470 over the past 42 years, peaking at 640 in 1972, with the lowest figure recorded last year at 379. That is the lowest figure since 1965, largely thanks to the introduction of the penalty points system with regard to speeding.
However, another harrowing statistic, often overlooked, is the fact that since 1968 between 7,000 and 13,000 have been injured in road collisions each year, representing a figure of almost 200,000. These are what we often refer to as the "fortunate ones".
Declan and Paul are just two out of the many thousands who have lived through horrific experiences. In many ways they are the forgotten victims of Ireland's road carnage.
"You only hear about the dead," says McCarthy. "We don't think about the so-called lucky ones."
The documentary, Crash, took him into the centre of two families torn apart by what he describes as "one split second which causes so much devastation for so many people. I was very reluctant initially to get involved - it was a very heavy journey to go.
"But I know how dangerous it is out there and I knew it was a good thing to do. One of the most difficult things was that at every door I opened there were floods of tears. I was absolutely mentally shattered by that."
He also witnessed first-hand the carnage when cars crash at high speed. Joining ambulance crews in Dundalk, Co Louth, he saw "a glimpse of shocking reality" in an area with the highest accident level in the State.
Yet even witnessing such horrifice scenes can leave serious traumatic after-effects.
Mark Brannigan of Dublin Fire Brigade says that, while they recruit people they think can cope with such traumatic experiences, an accumulation of incidents or individual episodes which are particularly disturbing can trigger difficulty with fire crew members.
"Anything involving children is difficult," he says. "I have yet to meet any of our people who haven't been deeply effected by these situations. We very seldom get to a scene where we can't do anything. That affects fire fighters most deeply because our job is to save lives. This can be very troubling."
Brannigan is one of eight de-briefers in the Dublin brigade. Their job is to speak with fire crews and identify those who may be adversely affected by what they have seen on duty and to provide professional assistance where necessary.
Dr Ray Fuller of Trinity College, Dublin, says that, clearly, being in a car accident or witnessing one is traumatic and it very often takes time to accommodate that experience. People can suffer post-traumatic symptoms and can need counselling.
Fuller also believes the mental scars associated with being injured can linger long after a patient is discharged from an accident and emergency ward. "The point is often missed," he says. "Injury involves loss as well. It involves other people around you adjusting to the change. An early response is often denial."
Alan Campbell is one such witness to the horrors of our roads. He came upon the "shocking reality" of a car crash while working as a reporter for TV3. It was two years ago that he came upon a serious collision. Images of the crash have left a deep impression on him.
"There was a man in one of the cars with a gash on his forehead," says Campbell. "He was white in the face. He could hear me talking to him but he couldn't respond. I talked to him and reassured him the ambulance was on its way." Campbell stayed by the man's side for 25 minutes as his life ebbed away in the wreck of his crashed car.
In that time he contacted the ambulance on 10 separate occasions before it arrived. "After we left the scene we heard on the radio news that the man had died. He was over on holidays from England. It was only then that we began to get a picture of his life."
Campbell was not injured in the accident and lost no relatives in it, but he still lives with the memories of that day. He is another one of the forgotten victims - one of the "lucky ones".
"I have changed my driving habits," he says, "and I do still think about what happened from time to time. It's an image I would not like to see again."