Club shaft embedded in golfer’s head after holiday taxi crash in Spain

An Irish golfer holidaying in Spain had the shaft of a golf club embedded in the back of his head when a Spanish taxi went out of control and somersaulted into a ravine, the Circuit Civil Court was told yesterday.

Shane English, counsel for amateur golfer John Moroney, Drumin, Dunleer, Co Louth, told Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, that two other Co Louth golfers were also injured in the crash minutes after the trio had left La Manga Golf Club.

Mr Moroney said that in September 2010, he and friends Michael Lynch and Mark Lawless had just finished a round of golf at La Manga and hired a taxi to take them to their hotel.

“The driver took off very quickly, even before we had time to put our seat belts on,” Mr Moroney told Mr English. “He continued to drive at an alarming pace and hit a crash barrier as he tried to overtake another car in the middle of the road.”

Mr Moroney said he had been knocked unconscious and only woke up when he arrived strapped in a wheelchair at the local Santa Maria hospital where a surgeon had operated to remove part of a golf club shaft from the back of his head.

Mr English told Judge Groarke the taxi overturned and toppled into a 7m-deep water run-off ravine. Mr Lynch, of Johnstown, Dunany, Togher, and Mr Lawless, of Glebe House, Clostown, Togher, had also been injured but not as badly as Mr Moroney.

Mr Moroney said he had been heavily medicated, probably with morphine, by the time he recovered consciousness at Santa Maria Hospital. He remembered, following an operation, having been shown the grip and part of a broken golf shaft which the surgeon told him he had removed from the back of his head.

He had been left with a permanent 7.5cm scar at the base of his scalp and had significant soft tissue injuries to his face, arms, shoulder, shins, ribs and chest. “The bruising around my left eye was so bad that I looked like something out of The Elephant Man movie,” the 53-year-old golfer told the court.

Mr Lawless, 49, said he was knocked out in the crash and found his unconscious friends Michael and John on top of him. He had been covered in blood.

Mr Lynch, 53, said it was a frightening experience and to this day he has back spasms. He had played golf three or four times a week before the accident but had never played the game since.

Barrister Cormac MacNamara raised a legal point on the question of whether or not the court would be restricted under Spanish law in its assessment of damages and Judge Groarke reserved judgment on all issues.

The Co Louth golfers had sued two Spanish car insurance companies.