Car approached skew bridge at 170km/h before fatal crash

A YOUNG man was flung from his car and killed after a high-speed crash on a treacherous bridge in Cork, an inquest heard yesterday.

City coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, was told that Daragh Farrell, aged 32, of 4 Woodhill Villas in Tivoli, Cork, lost control of his 2ltr Mazda Xedos as he drove from the city at speed towards the Tivoli or Skew bridge at about 3am on October 24, 2006.

The car failed to make a sharp left turn on the bridge, smashed through a thick concrete wall on the other side of the road and crashed down an embankment.

Mr Farrell, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the car and suffered massive head and neck injuries. He was rushed to Cork University Hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Two of his friends, Amy Thornhill and Bill Ghariani, who were in the back seat and not wearing seat belts, survived.

Mr Ghariani told the inquest that they had all been drinking in city pubs earlier. An autopsy found that Mr Farrell had a blood alcohol level of 130 milligrams per centilitre of blood — more than 1.5 times the legal limit of 80mg/100ml.

Mr Ghariani said he often drove Mr Farrell’s car, but was too drunk to drive home on the night of the accident.

Mr Ghariani said he remembered seeing Mr Farrell wrestling with the steering wheel as they approached the bridge and seeing the speedometer read 170 kilometres per hour just before the impact.

The car hit with such force that it flung a 700kg piece of the wall into the nearby Millennium Park — over eight metres away.

Garda Dermot Carroll, a forensic collision investigator, said it was impossible to tell the exact speed at impact but the car would have been travelling “far in excess” of 50km/h an hour to fling debris that far.

He also said a “small stone high-grip” road surface on the bridge had worn away in patches, while the glass in some ‘cats eyes’ was missing, and an electronic warning sign on the approach was not readable in darkness.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

Dr Cullinane expressed her deepest sympathies to Mr Farrell’s parents, Charlie and Eilis, and to their children, Cathal and Orla, who were in court.

“This is a terribly tragic event, to lose someone who was by all accounts an exemplary young man,” she said.

Family solicitor Niall O’Sullivan thanked all the emergency services and singled out Sgt Gamble for special thanks.