AN ACTOR has told the High Court he may never act again as a result of a car crash in which he believed he was going to drown.
Tony McKenna (37), who has appeared in TV dramas including The Clinic, Fair Cityand Ros na Rúnand also played in the Abbey and Samuel Beckett theatres, has brought proceedings over personal injuries and post-traumatic-stress disorder allegedly suffered following the crash in late 2007.
Mr McKenna claims he had to take evasive action as a car approached him on the wrong side of the M4 between Kinnegad and Mullingar on November 19th, 2007. He is suing the driver of the other car, Paddy Keogh, Gibbonstown, Rochfortbridge, Westmeath. Liability is not an issue and the court has been asked to assess damages.
The court was told Mr McKenna, Charleville Close, Rathmines, Dublin, was driving a car in which two acting colleagues were passengers to a performance in Castlebar when they saw another car coming towards them.
He manoeuvred to avoid a collision but, as a result, went through a wooden fence and up on to a roadside mound, causing the car to flip over and into a ditch with five feet of water, his counsel Jim O’Callaghan SC said.
The car began quickly to fill up with water and while Mr McKenna’s passengers managed to get out, his electric window would not work and he could not undo his seat belt. He believed he was going to die and in a deliberate attempt not to prolong this, allowed water to get into his lungs.
At that stage, he passed out but was pulled out by one of his passengers, Elaine O’Dea.
Mr McKenna told the court the car filled up with water quickly because the windscreen and sun roof of his Nissan Primera smashed in the impact.
Breaking down as he recalled the incident, he said he reached out to see if he could find Ms O’Dea and when he could not, thought: “We are all dead”. He lost control of his body and ran out of ideas about what to do, he said.
It was estimated he spent about 3½ minutes in the car before being rescued. He was taken to hospital suffering from groin and hip injuries and, after receiving two morphine injections, he was discharged.
The Castlebar show they were due to perform that night, Falling out of Love, was cancelled but they received a standing ovation when they went ahead with the same show in Limerick two nights later, he told the court.
Mr McKenna said he had been enjoying quite an amount of success and, while he still had to work at part-time jobs, was getting calls for work rather than having to look for it. He earned about €20,000 from acting in 2007.
He finished the tour of Falling out of Love but, while working on his next job, a tour of Macbeth for schools, began suffering from panic attacks. He had difficulty rehearsing and, when he went on stage, was shaking and in tears. He suffered similar problems on his next show in Cork and stopped socialising with cast members.
He could not sleep properly and became withdrawn from his friends and family. He was on disability payments and did not know whether he would ever be able to resume his acting career.
Under cross-examination from Michael Counihan SC, for Mr Keogh, Mr McKenna said he was afraid of being around people and did not feel he would ever act again. The hearing before Ms Justice Mary Irvine continues.