Young doctor who fell to death left Thailand before tsunami hit

A NORTHERN Ireland man who plunged to his death while climbing a mountain in New Zealand had told his family how lucky he was to have escaped the Asian tsunami, it emerged last night.

Dr Dónal Deery, aged 29, a senior house officer from Belfast, had been in Thailand two weeks before the Indian Ocean earthquake struck on St Stephen’s Day.

His distraught father Francis revealed he discussed his good fortune in his final phone call home.