Stardust inquests told of efforts to rescue woman ‘covered in flames’ from nightclub fire

Unsuccessful attempts were made during the Stardust fire to use a rod with a hook at the end to save a girl who was rolling on the ground “covered in flames”, Dublin Coroner’s Court has heard.

Testimony from Derek Brown, who was 20 at the time of the disaster, was read into the record on Monday during fresh inquests into the deaths of 48 people, aged 16 to 27, in the disaster at the north Dublin nightclub in the early hours of February 14th, 1981.

In his statement of February 18th, 1981 to gardaí, Mr Brown said he escaped the venue through exit 5 off the dance floor, which had been locked.

He said he joined several others in kicking the doors and that there was a gap of “about four inches between” them. He said he found he could breathe the air coming through the gap and that after some time “the doors gave away and we all went flying out as there as a big crowd pushing behind us”.

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Mr Brown said he located a friend and went back to exit 5.

“At this stage the smoke was circling at the door. I knelt down as the smoke was very thick from about 2ft off the ground upwards. We could see fairly well underneath the smoke,” he said.

“A fellow near me had a hook...I think it was plastic, about 6ft in length with a curve on the end. I saw a girl about nine or 10 feet away covered in flames. The clothes seemed to be burned off her. She was screaming and lying on the floor, rolling around.

“I could hear ‘pops’ coming from the small bar and presumed it was bottles of spirits blowing up...The fella with the hook tried putting the curve around the girl’s legs and pulling her out. The heat was very intense. Then he dropped the hook. I grabbed it and ran in. I tried hooking the girl’s body with the hook but it kept slipping off.

“When she had stopped screaming and moving I ran out again. I presumed she was dead as did the rest of us. Somebody closed the doors.”

Mr Brown’s testimony and that of several witnesses who are unavailable to give evidence was read-in on day 82 of the inquests.

Patricia O’Connor, 16 at the time, told the court in direct evidence that for 10 years she “could not go up that road” where the family home of Caroline Carey (17), who died in the blaze, was located.

She had persuaded Caroline’s mother to let her go to the club that night, promising to get her home. Caroline was almost five months pregnant.

The witness said she and another friend had called to Caroline’s home in Kilmore. “We were up in her bedroom and she said, ‘Will you go down and ask mam can I go?’,” Ms O’Connor said.

“We went down twice and [her mother] said she could go if she was home after the dancing competition. We said she’d be home. We left. Her mammy was sitting in the sittingroom and said ‘Goodbye’ to her. We went down the Ardlea Road and the Kilmore Road. We saw her daddy going down. Her daddy beeped at us. We were just so excited. We all were, just so excited.

“I couldn’t go up that road for 10 years because, you know, we had promised her mammy she would come home.”

The inquests heard Caroline and her boyfriend were rescued from toilets on the night. While he survived, she could not be resuscitated.

Ms O’Connor told the inquests she had suffered serious burns across 52 per cent of her body and spent more than two months in hospital. The burns were not caused “by fire” but were due to the “dripping” of a substance “like tar or oil” from the ceiling, she said. She said she fell as she ran to an exit when the fire broke out.

Asked by Mark Tottenham, BL for the coroner, how big the “dripping” was from the ceiling, she said: “Big enough to burn the whole of my arms, the whole of my back, my chest, my neck – third degree burns. They were big enough to all gel together...I didn’t feel it after a while. I can’t describe it. It all blends into one.”

The inquests continue.