Dental records to identify crash victim

Dental records and DNA will be vital in identifying a man who died in a horrific car accident in west Cork.

The man was travelling alone towards Dunmanway when his car collided with a number of trees

between Ballineen and Dunmanway near Manch at 9.30pm on Saturday.

The impact of the collision caused the car to burst into flames.

A motorist who arrived on the scene at that point contacted the emergency services. One unit of the county fire service attended from Dunmanway however, it was too late to save thedriver.

Superintendent Eddie McEoin said a postmortem examination was being carried out on the remains at Cork University Hospital this morning.

He said dental records and a DNA sample would be the key to identifying the dead man. It was originally thought the victim was a foreign national but it is also possible that the man could be Irish. Nobody had contacted gardaí this morning to report anybody missing.

The road was re-opened at lunchtime yesterday, after a forensic examination of the scene was completed.

A similar accident occurred in the same area in May 2004 when a man lost his life after the car which he was driving hit a pole and burst into flames.

The man killed in Saturday night’s accident was one of seven people killed in three accidents nationwide during the weekend.

Four people were killed in a two-car collision in Borris In Ossory in Laois on Saturday morning.