Victim crushed to death in refuse truck ‘happy living rough’

A MAN, living rough and crushed to death in a refuse collection truck, had chosen a homeless lifestyle, his family said yesterday.

Despite other injuries, gardaí could not determine if there was any foul play in the death of Kevin Fitzpatrick. Brought up in Derby, the 36-year-old had been a talented chess player in his schooldays, but returned to the home country of his parents seven years before his death in September 2007.

His strange lifestyle, living rough, made him happy, a brother said yesterday.

After an inquest in Limerick, his brother Martin said it was “painful” for family members to hear the tragic details.

He said their father died the year before Kevin.

“No deaths are easy, but when they come together it has a multiplication affect.

“In the case of a child losing a parent, not that you get used to it, it seems natural; in the case of a parent losing a child it goes against all the laws of nature.”

The death, he said, was particularly difficult for their mother Mabel.

Kevin was from a family of six children. Martin said: “And you always think he’ll come home. Mum and Dad came to Ireland. They met Kevin and did everything possible to get him to come home short of hitting him over the head and bringing him home with them. They came to the conclusion that his lifestyle, which to the rest of us might seem strange, was one that made him happy.

“I think he used to look at the rest of us living normal lives and wonder why we chose to live like that.”

He thanked Det Sgt Denis Treacy of Roxboro Road Station for the help he had given the family.

A postmortem showed Kevin died from crush injuries to his chest. He had lived rough in Dublin, Cork and Limerick.

State pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy said the victim’s rib cage was forcibly compounded causing crush asphyxia. It was mechanical suffocation caused by his chest being crushed in the mechanism of a refuse truck. When he was deposited into the back of the refuse truck from a skip, he was alive and minimally intoxicated.

Coroner Dr Tony Casey asked about the possibility of an assault, but Inspector Tom O’Connor said a Garda investigation had not unearthed evidence to suggest third-party involvement in an assault

Tommy Mulcahy said he was working a loading shovel at the Mr Binman depot outside Limerick on September 17, 2007, when he saw a pair of boots and a pants among rubble.

Initially he thought it was a dummy but, when he realised it was a body, he raised the alarm.

The jury returned a verdict of misadventure and said the death was not an intended act.