Last moments of crash that killed two in Creeslough recalled at inquest

The last moments of the crash which claimed the lives of Michael McGinley (21) and Jamie Bonner (19) were recalled at the men’s joint inquest at Letterkenny Courthouse.

The inquest heard that the Volkswagen Golf TDI car being driven by Mr McGinley understeered and crossed on to the wrong side of the road.

A fraction of a second later it struck an Audi A4 car being driven in the opposite direction leaving the driver with serious injuries.

The other driver, Belfast man Brian Maguire, told the inquest how he simply didn’t have time to react when he met the VW Golf car coming around the bend at Derryart, Creeslough on the night of September 1st, 2020.

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“There was an explosion all around me and I remember there being lights and the car was full of dust and the radio was still playing,” he said.

Mr Maguire said he remembered saying to himself that he needed to get out of the car and crawled out on to the grass verge.

Fire Brigade officer at Falcarragh Fire Station, Joe Friel, told how his crew were on the scene at 9.53pmand found three young men in the VW Golf all wearing seat belts.

Mr Friel gave details of his team using cutting machinery to extract two of the injured men from the wrecked car.

He also told how some time later a doctor from NowDoc arrived on the scene and pronounced the front seat passenger dead.

The passenger was Jamie Bonner, a 19-year-old man from Dungloe.

The driver of the car, Michael McGinley, was taken to the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital after suffering critical injuries.

The inquest was told that so severe was an injury to Michael’s brain that it caused his body to slow down and he sadly also passed away on September 27th, almost a month after the crash.

A third man, a James Gallagher from Maghery, who was the back seat passenger in the car suffered some injuries but made a full recovery.

A mechanical inspection of both cars found that both were in a good serviceable pre-crash condition.

However, it was noted that the front two tyres of the VW Golf being driven by Mr McGinley were excessively worn under the legal thread limit.

Garda Forensic Collision Investigator, Sgt Gerard McCauley, carried out a full forensic examination of the scene of the crash, saying that weather was not a factor and that the road was in good condition.

He said he could not determine exactly what speed the VW Golf was travelling at because there were no skid marks from the car and there were no cameras in the area to take measurements from.

Coroner Dr Denis McCauleyconcluded that Mr Bonner’s cause of death was multiple injuries as a result of a road traffic crash and his death was accidental.

Mr McGinley’s cause of death was brain injuries caused as a result of a road traffic crash and his death was also accidental, the coroner added.