Family learn of deaths by chance call

RELATIVES of a mother-of-five and her two-year-old son only found out the pair had died in a holiday accident by a chance phone call.

Karen Creighton, 33, her two-year-old son, Andrei, and her partner Constantine, 39, died after a gas leak in the apartment they were staying at in Romania.

Ms Creighton, from Ballybrack, Dublin, and her son had been staying in the apartment in the city of Tg-gui, 400km South-West of the capital, Bucharest. The apartment was owned by Constantine’s parents.

Constantine’s family were preparing to bury all three of them in a local graveyard following the accident which happened on November 30 last.

Ms Creighton’s family were horrified to discover the Romanian authorities had no plans to tell them of her death. They learned about it a week later, from some of her friends.

“We were treated disgracefully by the Romanian authorities who would not do anything for you until you gave them money,” Ms Creighton’s sister, Lorraine, said.

The British Embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs then intervened and Karen and her son’s bodies were flown home for burial in Shankill, Dublin last Monday.

Karen has four other children from a previous relationship who are aged eight to 13 and who all live in Dublin.