The question of how the body of a driver killed in a road traffic accident came to be outside his car although the windows and doors of the vehicle were intact and closed was raised in the Coroner's Court in Dundalk yesterday.
The jury concluded that Mr Martin O'Neill (33), Arthurstown, Ardee, died from injuries received as a result of a road traffic accident on March 5th, 1996.
The Coroner, Mr Ronan Maguire, said the inquest had been adjourned as representatives of the family raised the matter that the body was found lying outside the car yet, in their opinion, it did not seem to have been ejected and the windows were intact.
The earlier court heard that gardai from Carrickmacross were called to the accident at Aclint on the Ardee-Carrickmacross road about 4 a.m. on that date. A car and a lorry had collided and the driver of the car, the deceased, was lying on the road beside his vehicle. The lorry driver, Mr Eamon Lynch, Earlsford Drive, Lucan, said he had been driving a Mercedes truck on the road and was doing approximately 80 k.p.h. It was pitch-dark and dry. He noticed a car approaching which crossed the white line at speed. He flashed his lights at it but the car collided with the truck. After the collision he waved down a lorry coming behind him driven by Mr Anthony Preston. Mr Lynch told gardai he did not interfere with the body of Mr O'Neill.
Mr Preston, from Kilmore Drive, Artane, told gardai he had been driving a rigid lorry and was doing about 50 m.p.h. He noticed the other lorry ahead of him and on the Ardee-Carrickmacross road. Its driver had waved him down and he saw that his truck was in a ditch. Mr Preston saw the car on his side of the road and checked the driver's body for a pulse but found none. In his opinion he had come on the scene within a short time and no one had moved the body.
He agreed with Mr Martin Crilly, solicitor, that the accident happened on a very wide stretch of road and the collision resulted in the lorry going into a ditch on its right-hand side and the car going across the road to the left-hand side.
When asked if he could account for how the body got to be on the hard shoulder completely out of the car he said: "I have not got a clue. I don't think it was thrown from the car on impact. The windscreen was intact. The driver's door window was broken. It was the only way he could have got out."
The Coroner said the matter had gone as far as it could in his court and, while he had been entitled to inquire into what happened, the inquest could not concern itself with liability.
The pathologist's report concluded that death was due to injuries consistent with the accident. It also found a blood alcohol reading of 206. The jury found that Mr O'Neill died at Aclint, Ardee, on March 5th, 1996, and sympathy was extended to his family.