Tourist was fatally injured after he stumbled and fell in front of passing taxi, inquest hears
A tourist was walking home from a pub with friends when he stumbled and fell in front of a passing taxi, an inquest heard.
William Campbell (47) was visiting from Canada he was struck and killed on the Shelbourne Road in Dublin.
He died of head and abdominal injuries after he was run over by the taxi shortly after midnight on October 9, 2016.
Mr Campbell from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada was visiting Ireland with a group of ten including his wife Terri-Lynn Campbell.
The group were spending two days in Dublin at Ariel House on Landsdowne Road and had visited the Guinness Store House before eating dinner at a city centre pub on the day of his death.
Later that night, Mr Campbell and two friends left a pub on Bath Avenue in Dublin 4 and turned onto Shelbourne Road minutes before he was struck. In CCTV footage of the group leaving the pub, Mr Campbell appeared to be ‘stumbling’ and was ‘unsteady on his feet’ according to investigating Garda Vicky Montgomery.
The man's friend David Anderson was walking alongside him when he fell at around 12.15am.
“William appeared to lose his footing on an uneven path, he stumbled and fell out onto the road. He rolled forward ...a taxi came and rolled over him. It all happened in an instant,” Mr Anderson said. A second friend, Matthew Grendall said the group had not been drinking heavily and described his friend as sober.
“One second he was beside me, the next he was out on the road. Everything happened in a split second,” Mr Grendall said.
Taxi driver Ivaylo Martinov said he saw a man fall out onto the road in front of his car from between two parked cars.
“I hit the brakes, but the car just rolled over him,” he said. Emergency services arrived within minutes, the court heard. Mr Campbell was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.18am.
The cause of death was massive cranial, abdominal and thoracic injuries due to a road traffic collision, according to a post-mortem conducted by Prof Eamon Leen.
A toxicology report found the man had a blood alcohol level of 305 milligrams per cent. Prof Leen described this as a 'severe level of intoxication.'
Forensic Collision Investigator Sergeant Paul Kearney said he was unable to say what caused Mr Campbell to fall onto the road. There was no CCTV footage of the fall or the impact with the taxi, the court heard.
Gda Montgomery said there are a number of driveways on the Shelbourne Road and the footpath is 'significantly lower' where these meet the road.
The jury at Dublin Coroner's Court returned a verdict of accidental death.
“This must have been an absolutely devastating thing to happen to your party and to the family and to all the bereaved. It was a matter of a second and it changed so many lives,” Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane.
