Child orphaned as father killed in crash with lorry

A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl was orphaned yesterday when her father was killed in a traffic accident just 18 months after her mother died in a crash.

A woman in her 50s was killed in a separate incident, bringing the number of people killed on Irish roads to 142 this year, 18 fewer than at the same time in 2002.

Franz Blazer, aged 38, died instantly when the car he was driving was involved in a head-on collision with an articulated lorry in Co Tipperary.

The accident happened near Toomevara on the main Nenagh to Roscrea road at 9.30am yesterday morning.

In January 2002, Mr Blazer from Annacotty in Limerick, was seriously injured in a crash in Lanzarote which claimed the life of his daughter’s mother and former partner Valerie Downey.

The 26-year-old Galway woman was an All-Ireland winning basketball captain and had been living in Lanzarote with her partner Franz and their daughter Alyssa for several years when the tragedy happened.

Yesterday Alyssa was being looked after by her grandparents Brendan and Lorna Downey.

Mr Blazer’s mother Tess was on holidays in Portugal with her daughter Sandra, aged 29, when news of the tragedy broke.

She is due to fly home today. he dead man’s father, Jurgin Blazer, is a native of Germany and has been living there for the last number of years.

It’s understood Mr Blazer was overtaking a minibus yesterday when his car was in a collision with a lorry about half a mile on the Limerick side of Toomevara.

Gardaí said the collision happened on a straight stretch of road and described driving conditions as “excellent” at the time of the accident.

The driver of the articulated lorry was shaken but unhurt. Superintendent Jim Fitzgerald of Nenagh Garda Station said a “number of witnesses” had already made statements about the accident.

The other fatal accident happened on the N-8 at Noard between Littleton and Urlingford at 11.15am when the woman’s jeep, which was involved in a collision with another car, careered into a lorry.

The woman, who is local, was pronounced dead at the scene, while the lorry driver was treated for minor injuries and shock at Our Lady’s Hospital in Cashel.