A DRAMATIC fishing and beauty spot on the cliffs at Valentia Island, off the coast of Kerry, has seen several deaths and has no proper signage to warn people of the dangers, the inquest yesterday into the death of a 27-year-old Polish man heard.
Krystoztof Kowalski of Friars Walk, Cork, was in a party of four friends who travelled from Cork to the Culloo Head on Valentia Island on August 30th, 2010, to take photographs of the dramatic cliff inlet. His friends told yesterday’s inquest in Cahersiveen how Mr Kowalski had gone some distance ahead of them and they had lost sight of him.
It was getting dark and they searched extensively but could not find their friend.
The inquest heard how his girlfriend of 6½ years, who had remained in Cork, had been ringing his mobile phone but had got no reply.
One of the party saw a baseball cap similar to the one worn by Mr Kowalski in the water in the gap area of Culloo Head.
His body was recovered the next morning from the spot by the Valentia Coast Guard. Anthony O’Sullivan, a volunteer with the Coast Guard for 15 years, who recovered the body, told the inquest he had been involved in the recovery of six bodies from Culloo Head in that time and two Polish people had recently been rescued from the sea there.
“Signs do not stay there because of the weather. I have recovered six bodies there. If it keeps going it’s going to claim more lives,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
He was replying to coroner Terence Casey, who asked if the signs he as coroner recommended at a previous inquest had been erected. Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster, who carried out the postmortem, found a very low level of alcohol and no drugs or prescribed medicines.
Mr Kowalski had injured his head on the rocks, was comatose in the water and died from drowning, she found.
Addressing the six-man jury, the coroner said Mr Kowalski would not have realised the danger he was in by going on to the rocks, so misadventure would be an inappropriate verdict.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.