Tragic death of infant may see new car safety feature

The Coroner for West Galway will write to the Minister for Transport to recommend that all new cars be installed with front parking sensors as standard, following the death of an 18-month old child in his own driveway last year.

Dr Ciaran MacLoughlin made his comments on Friday, at the conclusion of an inquiry into the death of Cillian Ó Cualáin, Clynagh, Carraroe. He had suffered fatal head injuries when he collided with the vehicle driven by a visitor.

His mother, Máire Rós, had given birth to a baby girl on May 13 2016, and a friend had arranged to visit with her own children on July 7, to see the new arrival. When they were leaving, Cillian was wriggling in his mother’s arms to get down and play, the Inquest heard.

“He walked to the rear of the house,” she recalled. “I expected to find him there.”

However, as her friend was driving away, she saw a red jumper under the car. Her son was lying on the ground and, Máire Rós, herself a nurse, knew her son’s injuries were life threatening.

The ambulance dispatcher advised both women to begin CPR, and they were doing this when Garda Jim Kenny arrived; he rang the emergency services to emphasise the seriousness of the incident. A helicopter was dispatched to bring the boy to UHG. It landed at Ros a Mhíl GAA Pitch, where it was met by the ambulance.

The boy and his mother arrived at UHG at 3.40pm that afternoon, but the child was pronounced dead 18 minutes later – consultant in emergency medicine, Dr John O’Donnell, described the injuries as catastrophic.

A Garda forensics team attended the scene and determined that the driver of the Peugeot 5008 vehicle had been between 1.3-1.5m off the ground (when seated at the wheel), but that a ‘blind area’ would have prevented her from seeing a child of his age (approximately 0.85m/2ft 9in in height).

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.