The injured:Five people were recovering in Naas General Hospital last night after the series of crashes on the M7 and M9 yesterday morning. One person was in a critical condition.
A sixth patient was transferred to Tallaght hospital yesterday afternoon. Naas was the only receiving hospital for the 27 casualties from the motorway pile-up. Accident and emergency department consultant George Little said the accident site was a scene of "utter devastation" spread over a three-mile area.
"It was extremely difficult for the pre-hospital services to actually get in to the injured patients because cars were on fire. There were vehicles blocking access, trucks on top of vehicles," he said.
"The patients out at the roadside were extremely lucky that we didn't have fatalities and more serious injuries. Specific injuries involved head and spine."
Natasha Dwyer left the hospital yesterday evening after getting the all-clear. She had some neck and lower back pain but was otherwise fine.
But the shock of the crash was swiftly followed by a surprise when doctors told her that she was pregnant. "I'm about six weeks," she said. "I do have lower back pain but they can't do an X-ray on me because I just found out I was pregnant."
She was driving to work in Kill from her Carlow home when her husband rang and advised her to avoid the road because there was a crash in the tunnel. "But sure I didn't listen and kept going and I thought it was grand. But the fog then was really bad just before the tunnel."
She slowed down "and the next thing a lorry came out of nowhere". He hit the car behind her. "So she hit me and then the lorry jack-knifed. But we're grand."
The scenario would have been far worse had the fog happened the previous day according to another motorist, courier Steven Houlihan from Portlaoise. His van was carrying explosive material on Monday. "Luckily I was carrying nothing today. If this happened yesterday there would have been people killed."
He was surprised that some motorists were "driving like lunatics" in very dense fog. Suddenly brake lights lit up all around him. "Another car came in beside me, clipped me, and the car in front of me hit the wheel of a lorry and sort of spun in front of me and then I hit her. And then another car ran into the back of me."
He checked on the motorist in front of him who was losing consciousness. "We couldn't get her out of the car because the car was just mangled. And then people started crashing behind us. Then we could hear people crashing underneath us. We were right on top of the bridge on the M9. And there was a car on fire further up.
"It's a miracle no one was killed," he said as he looked at a mobile phone photograph of his written-off van.
Naas hospital manager Michael Knowles said it was one of the biggest accidents it had ever dealt with.
The emergency plan went "extremely well" with no glitches, according to Fiona McDaid, emergency department nurse manager.
