Mobile phone may have played part in man’s death

A mobile phone may have been a factor in the death of a young man who had been out drinking with friends before his car left the road and flipped over.

Keith Davis, aged 21 of Clooncun East, Glenamaddy, Co Galway, died on April 10, 2015. Weather conditions were described as “atrocious” on the night his car hit a ditch and flipped over.

He was not wearing his seatbelt, an inquest heard. He was thrown from the car as it rolled a number of times at Ballyhard, Glenamaddy, on March 29, 2015.

Mr Davis had been out with friends at the Village Inn, Kilkerrin, Co Galway, and tried to organise a lift home for his girlfriend before driving her and two others home to Glenamaddy.

Emma Brogan, a friend, missed a call from Mr Davis at 4.39am and she phoned back twice but it went straight to voicemail. “I had asked Keith when he was leaving to tell me when Niamh was home,” said Ms Brogan.

John Kelly and his partner were driving home from a wedding when they came upon the crash scene at 5.24am.

Garda Alan Hanly of Dunmore Garda Station arrived at the scene at 5.52am. He observed a car facing into a field and a male lying injured on the road.

“I would describe weather conditions as atrocious,” he said.

The car drifted to the wrong side of the road where it hit the ditch and flipped over. It came to rest 88m from the initial point of impact. Mr Davis was found 13m from the vehicle. A forensic report found no brake marks on the road.

Gardaí examined the young man’s mobile phone and found that he tried to make a call at 4.40am and again one minute later. He sent a text at 4.42am.

“We cannot say definitively if he was using his phone while driving,” Garda Hanly said. “The fact he’d been drinking, not wearing his seatbelt, and the weather were all factors in the crash,” the garda said.

Mr Davis was transferred by ambulance to University Hospital Galway and later to Beaumont Hospital where he died on April 10, 2015. The cause of death was severe head injuries.

The jury at Dublin Coroner’s Court returned a verdict of accidental death.