by Andrew Carey
THE BLOOD of a retired Limerick County Council worker, who made miraculous recoveries after he was “mowed down” by cars on two occasions over a six year period, should be bottled and retained for medical science, the High Court has been told.
In 2004, Edmund Quinlan from Garryspillane was knocked down by a car and suffered multiple fractures including two broken legs, but his treating consultant said that despite the extent of the injuries then, his subsequent “recovery was marginally short of miraculous”.
In March 2010, the 71-year-old former local authority worker was walking to a local pub when he was again struck by a car and effectively “mowed down”, according to his legal counsel Gerald Tynan.
An assessment sitting of the High Court before Mr Justice Paul McDermott in Limerick on Wednesday was told that the accident occurred at sunset when the driver of the car “simply didn’t see him as he walked almost in on the ditch at the side of the road”.
Mr Tynan said his client was profoundly deaf and had some misfortune in life.
Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Thomas Burke said he had little hope of Mr Quinlan making a full recovery given that he had suffered two broken bones in his leg and a shattered knee where the bone had completely dissipated.
Previously inserted metal pins in Mr Quinlan’s legs were also bent out of place due to the force of the impact.
However, after surgery and ten weeks in balanced suspension similar to traction, Mr Quinlan recovered. He started walking again and even went outside the door of the hospital to smoke a cigarette. He then spent a year in a nursing home as a necessary part of his recovery.
Mr Burke remarked that if Mr Quinlan was in America, his blood would be bottled, such was his miraculous recovery from both accidents.
Stating that Mr Quinlan was “very stoical in dealing with the injuries piled on him and had recovered against all possible odds”, Mr Justice McDermott made an order for €177,630 which included Mr Quinlan’s medical expenses and legal costs.
