'Getting hit by a truck can be devastating. I’m lucky to be alive'

A man who suffered devastating injuries when a truck rolled over him has pleaded with truck drivers especially to take more care on the roads. “Truck drivers in particular should take a lot more care,” Mr O’Driscoll (31), Gurranabraher, Co Cork, said, after seeing haulier Tim Walsh jailed for three years for causing the crash last year which left him paralysed from the waist down.

Walsh, Moneen, Glanworth, Co Cork, had pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to dangerous driving causing serious injury to Mr O’Driscoll on the main Cork-Macroom road on August 7th, 2013. Mr O’Driscoll was left paralysed after the truck carrying 42 tonnes of timber rolled over him.

"I came across people in the National Rehabilitation Hospital who were in similar places to me when they were hit by trucks trying to overtake them or engage in dangerous manoeuvres. Truck drivers should be more careful, car drivers, too, but getting hit by a truck can be totally devastating. I'm lucky to be alive but some people this year haven't been this fortunate."

In his victim impact statement given at the beginning of the month, Mr O’Driscoll catalogued the various injuries he suffered when Walsh’s truck and trailer knocked him off his bike and rolled over him.

It was feared he would die after suffering injuries including a severed spinal cord, fractured pelvis, two broken hips, two broken legs and two broken ankles. He also suffered liver and kidney failure as well as bowel and bladder damage which have necessitated the use of a colostomy bag and catheter. He spent a month in an induced coma in the intensive care unit at Tallaght hospital followed by three months more in the unit .

He was transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, last February. “To be honest, the psychological side of it is nearly as bad as the physical side of it, if not worse. I used to get up in the morning and I used to be a happy person,” he told the court.

“I had to wake up to a new body which I wasn’t familiar with. It makes you feel a different person, it’s going to take me a long time to get over, if I ever will. It makes me contemplate suicide. I’ve talked to my psychologist and she reckons that I’m not depressed but that I’m grieving – grieving for the body I had and the life I had.”

Mr O’Driscoll said every plan he ever had had changed, including one to have children with his fiancée, Karen. Medically, the type of spinal cord injury I have shortens your life by 15 to 30 years,” said Mr O’Driscoll, adding he did not know if he would ever be able to work in any capacity again.

Asked yesterday if he was satisfied with the sentence, Mr O’Driscoll acknowledged that Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin was limited by the constraints of the legal system. “I think the judge was trying to be as fair as he could but at the end of the day I’m stuck in a wheelchair. That’s the reality of it whereas he [Walsh] will be out in three years.

“Do I feel anger towards him? I wouldn’t be angry towards anyone, I’m a forgiving person – everyone can make mistakes but it’s just being aware that mistakes have consequences. And I suppose that’s one of his crosses now,” he said.

“It’s been a really tough year for me and my family but I got engaged to Karen a couple of months back and we have a lot to plan for. We’re in the middle of buying a house so there’s a lot to look forward to but this changes everything.”