Tributes to Irishman killed by tree as storm lashes Britain
Donal Drohan, formerly of John’s Park in Waterford City, was killed when a branch fell on his car in Watford, north of London. Donal had lived in Britain for more than 20 years, and worked for Harrow council. He is survived by his wife and three children.
Mr Drohan, 51, died after his car was struck at the eastern end of the bridge over the River Colne on Lower High St in Watford shortly before 7am yesterday.
His family said: “He was the best husband and father anyone could wish for. You couldn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about him.
“He was very supportive to everybody who knew him and couldn’t say no to helping out with anything. He was an active member of the community who was involved with local groups and had recently helped Team Harrow of The Challenge Network helping to shape the lives of hundreds of young people within the local community.”
Mr Drohan was a long-serving local authority employee and had recently taken up golf.
Susan Hall, leader of Harrow council, said: “This is an absolute tragedy and everyone is devastated. Donal was one of our public realm managers and had worked for us for nearly 25 years.
“He was always cheerful, and passionate about his job, keeping our streets clean. His council colleagues are finding this very hard to deal with. Our thoughts are with Donal’s family both here and in Ireland.”
A police officer at the scene of the incident said that a millisecond’s difference in Mr Drohan’s journey would have made for “a different story”.
The unnamed officer said: “This is a major artery into Watford and we were lucky it was school half-term. If it wasn’t, we’d have had a lot more traffic coming through here.”
Richard Searle, director of a furniture store in Watford, had been driving to work at the time of the incident. He said it was “very upsetting” and he was “very sorry” for Mr Drohan’s family.
“It happened about a minute before I got here,” he said.
“I was driving to work — normally I try to get in early — and as I got here, the traffic had slowed down. I couldn’t go straight in, so I pulled on the drive, parked my car up, and then I walked down the road assuming there’d been an accident.
“I noticed as I walked down there that a tree had fallen on top of a red Peugeot. I didn’t like the look of what I saw and it was too late for me to do anything.
“One minute earlier and it could have been me. I will say the police and ambulance were very quick to arrive.”
