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Student died after leaping over wal
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Darwin Awards
2008 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Student died after leaping over wal

2008 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

A young medical student fell to his death when he mistakenly thought he was being pursued by gardai and jumped over a wall without realising there was an 18-foot drop on the other side.

Ciaran Toomey (18), of Ardnacrusha, Co Clare, had scored 575 points in his Leaving Cert and was a talented all-round sportsman.

He won a place at NUI Galway and did not even have to enter pre-med because of his Leaving Cert results -- going straight into first year.

But early on November 6 last he was returning home from a night out with two friends when he met his death.

Ciaran had run into a car park in the city centre at about 2.40am and knocked over a wheelie bin. Moments later a garda van on routine patrol came up behind the trio.

All three initially thought they were in trouble and began to run. But the gardai had put their antics down to late-night high jinks and drove past the two friends.

Ciaran was about 30 yards ahead and disappeared into another car park at Newtownsmyth as his friends called out to him that there was no need to worry.

UCD student Andrew Flood said they could not find Ciaran and tried to call his mobile phone. There was no response. They searched the city and even contacted the gardai to see if he had been arrested, but could not trace him.

The two friends slept for a couple of hours and resumed the search early in the morning.

That afternoon they all met up close to the car park where he was last seen. Ciaran's body was then spotted at the bottom of a ravine or canal bed on the other side of the car-park wall where construction work was taking place. He had died instantly.

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.

Pathologist Dr Teresa McHale said the cause of death was extensive head and spinal injuries.

Submitted on 05/16/2008

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference: independent.ie May 16 2008

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

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Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
I'm surprised this wasn't already in the slush pile given that it happened last November. We've had a number of similar stories involving people running from authorities and jumping over walls/bridges, but I'll accept this one since he ran for no reason at all. Thanks for sending it in.


James said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
So this fellow was an advanced-admissions medical student? Perhaps it's a good thing he didn't live to operate on anyone! An unfortunate tragedy, but definitely a DA!


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