Coroner at inquest of elderly Cork couple who died in house fire urges people to buy smoke alarms
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The deaths of a “very respected” couple whose house caught fire the night they celebrated the birth of their first grandchild should prompt a societal response to prevent future fire deaths, Cork Coroner’s court heard.
Neighbours and family had celebrated with John and Gabrielle (‘Gay’) O’Donnell a short time before a “ball of flame” engulfed their three-storey house, an iconic tiled terraced home on Cork’s Lower Glanmire Road last April.
Coroner Dr Mary McCaffrey urged people to buy presents of good smoke alarms for loved ones this Christmas, rather than the usual “silly stuff”.
Mr O’Donnell had died of a heart attack before the fire started while his wife had died of smoke inhalation, Cork Coroners Court heard.
Neighbour Colin Hackett said in a statement read to the court that on April 4 he went to the couple’s house, aware that their first grandchild had been born that day. An open fire was lighting, there was a gas fire in the room and a few candles were on a glass table.
Mrs O’Donnell’s brother Brendan Sexton also visited the couple at 131 Lower Glanmire Road that evening. They were “happy and joyful” with the news of their first grandchild that night, Mr Sexton said.
He remembered Mr O’Donnell commenting that the coal fire had gone down in the sitting room where they were but that a gas stove was still lighting. Mr Sexton left the O’Donnell’s at about 10.25pm and went to the nearby KLM Bar. Shortly after 11pm, a man came in and told them a house nearby was on fire.
“131 was ablaze. I broke a pane of glass on the front door with my elbow to get in but there was no going into the house,” he said due to the intense fire raging there.
The first person at the scene, Alan Lyne, was driving past at approximately 11.09pm when he noticed “a ball of flame” at the O’Donnell’s house. “I went immediately to the house and dialled 999.
“I banged on the door a number of times, then I heard a bang, it blew out the windows of the house. A fire was raging inside. The bang was not very loud. At no stage was it possible to enter the building, such was the intensity of the fire from the time I arrived.”
Mr Lyne knocked on the doors on the adjoining houses to get people out. Coroner McCaffrey commended Mr Lyne on his community spirit.
“You thought of the lives of everyone. It could have been worse if the fire spread but you got the emergency services there as quickly as you could.”
Victor Shine of Cork City Fire Brigade said that seven units of the fire brigade worked at the scene, with some working there for some 24 hours. The fire spread from the ground floor right up through the three-storey building. Two fatalities were found in the living room area, he said.
The home was “completely engulfed in flames” when Sgt Owen O’Connell, the chief investigating officer, arrived at 11.25pm. Gardaí cordoned off the area and closed the Lower Glanmire Road.
The fire appears to have taken hold very quickly because CCTV showed Mr Sexton leaving the house at 22.45, a couple walked past without noticing anything untoward in the house at 23.04, but by 23.09 Alan Lyne drove past and noticed the “ball of flame” beginning to engulf the house.
The fire brigade arrived at 23.20, just 10 minutes after Mr Lyne called 999. The building was completely gutted. Everything was so damaged that it was not possible to say where the seat of the fire was, Garda Orla Punch, the scene of crime investigating officer, told Cork Coroner’s Court.
Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster carried out autopsies on the couple on April 6 in the City Morgue in Cork. Mr O’Donnell had died of hypertensive ischemic cardiomyopathy with severe coronary artery disease.
He died before the fire started because there was no evidence of smoke inhalation. No soot was found in his trachea and his carbon monoxide levels were not elevated at less than 10%.
But he had severe heart disease and people with enlarged hearts can die suddenly at anytime, Dr Bolster said. “He wouldn’t have suffered at all, he would have died very suddenly,” she said.
Carbon monoxide levels of more than 50% are fatal, Dr Bolster said, and his wife had carbon monoxide levels of some 52%. She died of acute carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation in the house fire, Dr Bolster said.
Soot was found in her lungs. High levels of carbon monoxide would have meant that she died very quickly, she said.
The couple’s son, Mark O’Donnell, said that there were multiple smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms in the house. Although his mother liked candles, she had replaced most of them with battery operated candles rather than using many naked flames.
His parents had been conscious about fire safety and would always check that any candles were extinguished, he said.
Although his father was 83 he would walk around the nearby quays twice a day and his mother, 75, was also well and active and was “always pottering around”.
The couple were “extremely nice people, very respected in the community,” their GP, Dr Mehboob Kukaswadia said in a statement read to the court. “It’s a shock to myself that they met such a tragic end,” he said.
Coroner McCaffrey said that it was “a terribly tragic situation”. “I think it’s important to acknowledge their happiness on the day. They knew they had their new grandchild. They were having a very happy night. It struck me how quickly a tragedy like this can happen.”
She said that she and fellow coroner Philip Comyn would look at what recommendations they could bring forward as a result of the O’Donnell’s inquest in a bid to protect others. Mortality rates from fires are much higher for older age cohorts, she said.
“Particularly for the elderly — who have been identified as being more at risk — what can we do as a society to prevent this?” Mr O’Donnell died of natural causes while his wife had an accidental death due to smoke inhalation, she said.
Sgt Fergus Twomey gave the condolences of the gardaí to the family and commended Mr Lyne for his “altruistic actions” that night which may have saved more lives in a situation where “minutes matter and seconds count”.