Man dies after 30ft fall onto railings
Blood stains marked the pavement on Limerick’s Clare Street which showed the path taken by the victim after he was lifted off the metal spikes by a horrified friend.
But the man, who suffered massive internal injuries, collapsed just yards away. He died later in hospital. Gardaí, for family privacy reasons, last night withheld the victim’s name.
The 19-year-old, believed to be from Limerick city, was climbing a drainpipe attached to a five-storey Georgian flat complex on Clare Street shortly before 9am yesterday when the horrific incident happened.
His friend was watching from the road below. It is understood the victim may have known people living in the building and had used the drainpipe before to gain access to their flat.
However, he lost his grip and plummeted about 30ft onto a set of four-foot high railings that run around the front of the building.
He was impaled on the tip of a square-top railing. Gardaí declined to go into detail but it is understood the man suffered massive internal injuries to his lower body and was bleeding profusely.
His friend rushed to his aid and, after frantic efforts, managed to lift him off the railings.
They both stumbled onto St Lelia Street. Gardaí believe they were trying to get to the nearby St John’s Hospital, but the injured man collapsed just a few yards away, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
An ambulance was on the scene within minutes. The injured man was rushed to St John’s Hospital but was pronounced dead just before 10am. His body was later removed to the morgue attached to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital. Gardaí sealed off the scene of the incident yesterday morning and said they were treating the death as suspicious until the full facts became known. An investigation led by Supt TG Mahon was launched yesterday afternoon.
“This was an absolutely horrific incident,” a garda spokesman said.
“This appears to have been a tragic accident as the man fell off the drain pipe and landed on the railings below.”
Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster, carried out a post mortem on the dead man’s body yesterday.
