This article is from page 5 of the 2008-05-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 5 JPG
A GIFTED Clare medical student was killed when he jumped over a small wall without realising there was an eighteen-foot drop on the other side.
Ciaran Toomey (18) of Ardnacru- sha had mistakenly thought he was being chased by gardai after a night out with friends in Galway.
An inquest on Thursday in Galway was told that Mr Toomey was return- ing home with two friends in the early hours of November 6 when the tragedy happened.
They were making their way home from the city centre around 2.40am. Mr Toomey had run into a car-park and knocked over a wheelie bin.
Shortly afterwards a Garda car on a routine patrol had come behind the trio. All three mistakenly thought they were in trouble and began to Mtbee
Mr Toomey raced about 20 metres ahead and disappeared into another car park.
One of the friends, UCD student Andrew Flood, said they tried call- ing his mobile phone when they could not find himbut there was no response. They searched for several hours, went to his apartment, and contacted the Garda to see if he had been arrested.
The two friends resumed the search early in the morning. Later they were joined by Mr Toomey’s house-mates and university friends, the group
meeting up close to the car-park.
Shortly afterwards his body was spotted at the bottom of a ravine or canal bed on the other side of the car- park wall.
Gardai who were in the patrol van when Ciaran started running told the inquest that they had no reason to stop any of the students as none of them had done anything untoward.
The victim’s father, Gerard Toomey, told the inquest that his son’s wallet had been found but that his mobile phone had not.
He was anxious to discover, through phone records, if his phone had been used since. The Toomey family was anxious to rule out the slight pos- sibility that he might have been at- tacked and jumped over the wall to get away or even been pushed over the wall.
Sergeant Senan Wall said that en- quiries had been made at Garda Headquarters to see if the records could be acquired, but it was not pos- sible, because of the Data Protection Xa
West Galway Cororner, Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said the only way he knew of to get such records was by way of a court order.
Pathologist Dr Teresa McHale said the cause of death was extensive head and spinal injuries. The in- quest was told that Mr Toomey was a gifted student who had won a place at NUI Galway without having to go through Pre-Med because he was so talented.