Nurse died after hair and pyjamas caught fire
The freak accident happened after the 25-year-old woman, some relatives and friends had been celebrating St Stephen’s night in the north Cork village of Newmarket.
Maeve O’Shea had finished night duty that morning at Cork University Hospital and went to Newmarket to celebrate the festive season with her family and friends at her uncle’s house in New Street.
When she returned from a local pub she decided to go to bed but came back downstairs at around 3am and asked her first cousin Áine O’Shea for a cigarette. A few moments later Áine and other people in the house heard a scream coming from the kitchen.
“I went to see what was wrong. I could see Maeve’s hair and the top of her pyjamas on fire. Her head was bent over the basin as if she was trying to put the fire out. From the waste up she was on fire,” Áine O’Shea said.
Maeve’s brother, Con O’Shea, ran into the kitchen and threw water over her to put out the flames.
“She seemed awfully quiet. She was saying, ‘Con, Con, Con’. I felt stunned, amazed and frightened,” Mr O’Shea said. “Her skin on her torso was quite badly burned. Her face was badly burned,” he said.
A local doctor Bertie Daly arrived a short time later and treated her at the scene. Maeve was rushed to Cork University Hospital but died a few hours later.
Det Garda Des Prendergast said he carried out a forensic examination of the kitchen. He said it was his belief that when she went to light the cigarette from the cooker ring either her hair or her pyjamas caught fire.
Cork City Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said that, while there were no eyewitnesses to what exactly happened, it was the most likely scenario.
Dr William Kealy said the cause of death was shock and toxemia following severe burns, Dr Kealy said.
Dr Cullinane recorded a verdict of accidental death. She said it was a terrible tragedy and extended her sympathies to Ms O’Shea’s family.
