Icy conditions contributed to death of well-known soccer coach
Icy road conditions were a factor in the road death of well-known soccer coach Jeremy Dee, an inquest has heard
Icy conditions contributed to death of well-known soccer coach
Icy road conditions were a factor in the death of Jeremy Dee, a well-known soccer coach in Mayo, who died as a result of a single vehicle collision on Sunday, November 18 last.
Mr Dee, with an address of Croghery Lodge, Thomas Street, Kiltimagh, was aged 51 at the time of his death.
Mr Dee was en route from Castlebar to Dublin for a soccer game involving the Castlebar Celtic women’s team whom he coached when his car left the road on the Roscommon-Galway border at Williamstown.
The collision took place at 8.55am at Kildaree, Williamstown, Co Galway, an inquest into his death heard yesterday (Monday) at Castlebar Courthouse.
Mr Dee’s daughter Ciara was a front seat passenger and Catherine Fleming, a player on the Castlebar Celtic team, was a back seat passenger. A fourth girl, Maria Harrington, was due to travel with Mr Dee on the day but was unable to travel, the inquest heard.
As the car left the road it collided with a wall resulting in the vehicle turning onto its roof resulting in injuries to Mr Dee which proved to be fatal.
Ciara Dee said that everyone in the car was aware of the frosty conditions and added that Mr Dee was ‘always careful when driving in the frost’.
In her statement to the inquest Ciara Dee said that, getting close to Williamstown, she heard her father shout ‘hold on, Jesus hold on’. She said she saw a wall outside her passenger window, felt the car turning over twice and when they came to a halt, her father didn’t respond when she called out.
Sebastien Locteau, a trained nurse, arrived at the scene and could find no pulse. He administered CPR for 45 minutes and felt a heartbeat ‘once or twice’.
Paramedics arrived and Ciara Dee, admitting she thought her father was dead, said to one of them ‘If he wakes up, tell him I love him’. Garda Kevin Brennan told the inquest that paramedics took Mr Dee to Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar, after finding a pulse.
However, the Dee family were told at Mayo General Hospital that Jeremy couldn’t survive the injuries he sustained. He died at 2.20pm.
The inquest also heard the statement of Tommy Feeney, a man who lives close to the scene of the accident. His statement revealed that at about 3am, some six hours before Mr Dee’s fatal crash, there was another crash on that stretch of road, which he went out to check on.
“While I was walking around this car I noticed the roads were lethal slippy. It was very frosty and the roads were very bad. In my time living around here there has been several accidents, it is well known locally that that particular section [of] road is very dangerous in frosty weather.
“It was resurfaced in the last two to three years and the new surface is very slippy when it freezes,” he said.
A forensic collision investigation report by Garda Nigel Silke recommended that both Galway and Roscommon County Councils come up with a plan in relation to the spreading of grit and salt, when required, on this stretch of road. He also said that as the location of the accident is on a crest with a bend, the application of a shell grip surface ‘would improve the ability to negotiate this part of the road in a safe manner to a very large extent’.
Returning a verdict of accidental death, the jury recommended that both councils improve the road by applying a shell grip surface as outlined by Garda Silke.