The death of an 11-year-old boy who fell through a roof and landed in the smoking area of a pub in Dundalk in September 2022 was a tragic accident, an inquest has ruled.
Coroner Dr Cróna Gallagher returned a verdict of accidental death after hearing details of the sequence of events that lead to the death of Calvin Curley-Gray.
The 11-year-old was with a group of friends on Sunday, September 4th, 2022, when they walked down an alleyway in Dundalk town and climbed onto a roof, the inquest heard.
“Children just don’t appreciate danger in the same way that adults do,” Dr Gallagher told the inquest on Monday.
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She said that, while it is not clear why the boys went onto the roof that day, it was likely due to “a sense of adventure” and “children being children”.
Dr Gallagher said it was a “very, very tragic accident”, and expressed her condolences to Calvin’s parents Diane and Francis, his siblings Sophie, Evan and Cruz, and his wider family.
A statement given to gardaí by one of Calvin’s friends was read out during the inquest. The young boy said he, Calvin and a few friends got the bus into Dundalk on the day in question.
The boys walked down an alley and saw a gate. They went through it and proceeded to climb up a metal staircase and go onto a roof, the boy’s statement noted.
According to the statement, the boys were on the roof for about five to 10 minutes before Calvin fell. One part of the roof was covered by a black tarpaulin sheet.
“Calvin jumped on it and he went through it,” the boy said via his statement, “I ran back and told my friends he fell through the roof.”
The rest of the boys came down from the roof and tried to find where Calvin had landed. They walked into the Uisce Beatha Bar, a pub located on Clanbrassil Street.
Around the same time, at some point between 4pm and 4.30pm, Gerard Agnew went into the pub’s smoking area.
“I went out for a smoke and saw a young lad lying on the ground,” Mr Agnew told the inquest.
He initially thought it was “a joke”, but then noticed the boy’s clothes were wet and “knew something was wrong”.
Mr Agnew said he ran back into the pub to get help. A number of people including Adrianne Callan, who owns the pub, came into the smoking area.
Ms Callan said she has owned the pub for eight or nine years and, at some point before the Covid-19 pandemic, black plastic sheeting was placed over the Perspex roof which covers the smoking area.
Ms Callan said two other businesses, aside from the pub, have access to the smoking area. She told the inquest she could not remember any other occasion when someone had been on the roof.
Ms Callan said her memories of the day of the incident are “hazy”, but that she called 999 and “first responders came and did their job”.
Calvin was treated at Temple Street Children’s Hospital for about two weeks. He was declared brain dead on September 17th, 2022. He officially died on September 19th, and Dr Gallagher agreed to list the latter date as Calvin’s date of death, as per his family’s wishes.
A postmortem examination carried out by Dr John O’Neill ruled that Calvin “died from traumatic brain injury due to a fall from a height”.
Speaking after the verdict of accidental death was delivered, Calvin’s older sister Sophie said her brother is “dearly missed”.
“He had a bright future ahead of him as he was an unreal boxer and footballer.”
Sophie, who herself boxes for Ireland, said her mother had just had another baby, a boy called Cruz, when Calvin’s accident happened. She said her mother feels as though “she lost one to gain one”.
