Five hospitalised, one critical, after multi-vehicle crash

Five people, including a four-year-old boy, were taken to hospital following a pile-up on the outskirts of Cork city which closed the main Cork-Limerick road for several hours yesterday.

One of the five people injured in the crash, a woman in her 30s who was driving a van, was said to be in a critical condition.

Separately a motorcyclist who struck a parked car in Blackrock, Dublin, has died. The accident happened at 4.40pm yesterday on Careysfort Ave. The man was taken to St Vincent’s University Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Cork collision happened south of Rathduff on the N20 Cork-Limerick road at around 1.40pm.

An articulated lorry, two cars and two vans were involved in the pile-up, which happened a few hundred yards from the Whitechurch junction.

The boy and his mother, who is in her 30s, were in one of the cars involved in the crash.

The articulated lorry driver in his 50s was also taken to hospital, as were a man and a woman who are in their 30s.

Superintendent Con Cadogan, who is leading the garda investigation, said that gardaí were trying to ascertain how the crash occurred and he was appealing for witnesses to come forward.

He said the area had seen a number of serious crashes in the past, although in recent years there had not been as many fatal ones as before.

“It’s a fairly fast stretch of road and we’d be asking motorists to slow down on it,” Supt Cadogan said.

The senior garda said that An Garda Síochána regularly conducts meetings with county council and National Roads Authority officials over road safety issues and that it was likely that they would be speaking to the interested parties about the latest crashes on this stretch of road.

Independent councillor Kevin Conway, who lives less than a mile from the scene of the latest crash, said that the area was now the most dangerous on the Cork-Mallow road.

“I’m a professional hackney driver and I hate driving it,” said Mr Conway.

“It’s the only section of the Cork-Mallow road where serious accidents continue to occur on a regular basis. Something is obviously wrong there.

“It’s high time engineers and gardaí got together to improve road safety there and I will be bringing this up at Cork County Council’s meeting next Monday.”

The road remained closed for several hours as crash scene investigators carried out a survey and the wreckage was taken away.

Any witnesses are asked to contact Gurranabraher Garda Station in Cork at 021 4946200.