A motorist involved in a fatal crash in which his young daughter died in Dublin two years ago has no recollection of the incident, an inquest had heard.
A sitting of Dublin City Coroner’s Court was told that Avelino “Billy” Bombita has no memory of the collision in which his daughter, Ashley, 11, suffered fatal head injuries.
An investigation by gardai concluded Mr Bombita must have fallen asleep at the wheel after hearing he had finished a 12-hour night shift a few hours earlier at St Mary’s Hospital in Phoenix Park, Dublin where he worked as a nurse.
The fatal incident occurred at around 11.30am on January 11, 2020 on the Lower Lucan Road as Mr Bombita was bringing Ashley and her younger sister, April, (then aged seven) from music lessons in Lucan to their home in Ongar.
The young schoolgirl, whose parents moved to Ireland from their native Philippines in 2007, died the following day from injuries she suffered in the crash at Temple Street Hospital.
Another motorist who witnessed the crash, Colin Townsend, said he saw a Honda Civic on the wrong side of the road before it crashed into a pillar near the entrance to Shackleton Mills on the Lower Lucan Road.
Mr Townsend said the front of the vehicle was crumpled by the impact.
He described finding the driver in a lot of pain and attempting to talk but “not making sense.”
The inquest heard another woman who arrived on the scene began to perform CPR on Ashley after checking and finding she had no pulse and did not appear to be breathing.
In a statement, Mr Bombita, who was too unwell to attend the inquest, said he found it difficult to talk about what happened.
“I don’t remember the crash,” he stated.
The inquest heard a post-mortem on Ashley’s body found she suffered traumatic head injuries as well a cardiac arrest and a ruptured spleen as a result of the crash.
An examination of Mr Bombita’s Honda Civic found no mechanical defects with the vehicle.
Garda Patrick McEvoy, a forensic collision investigator, said Mr Bombita’s car had swerved suddenly “without warning” onto the other side of the road before mounting a kerb and hitting a pillar.
He confirmed that the driver and his two daughters were all wearing their seat belts at the time of the crash.
However, Garda McEvoy said it appeared that Ashley’s head had hit an arm rest between the driver’s and front passenger’s seats.
Garda McEvoy said the only reasonable explanation as to what happened is that the driver had fallen asleep.
Mr Bombita’s wife, Rowena, told the coroner, Cróna Gallagher, that her husband did not want to talk about the crash but she welcomed the investigation by gardai.
“It is hard for us,” said Ms Bombita.
Returning a verdict of accidental death, Dr Gallagher said it was a “very tragic” case.
