Time to pause in sympathy for Joe O'Shea, of Shanakill, Tralee, clearly one of the most unfortunate individuals in Kerry. Local ratepayers must feel grateful indeed that they have the resources to compensate our Joe for the unforeseen and unforeseeable accidents which constantly befall him. Thank God, say I, for th'ould insurance.
The most recent occasion on which J. O'Shea had recourse to that wide and generous purse was last month, when he sued Dunne's stores in Tralee over a tragic event which occurred a year ago. I will let him tell the story in his own inimitable words.
"I was walking between the aisles. I turned and my leg went from under me. There was a broken jar of curry on the floor. My pants, which was tight, was torn, and I saw the blood coming down from my muscle on my calf. It was only a trickle of blood now but I wiped it with my pants."
Six stitches
These pants of his were - sorry, was - in for a time of it, as we'll discover. Mr O'Shea told the court that his calf wound required six stitches, but it doesn't seem to have confined its mischief to his lower leg. "The main problem was going to the toilet. You know the way you feel like going to urinate and the way you can keep it in, but it used to dribble down my trousers because of the fall. I couldn't keep it in. I suffered a pain in my thigh, pelvis and calf."
And not just pain and incontinence, but amnesia too. When asked if had been in hospital in Cork between the time he was injured and when the stitches were removed, this fine fellow testified: "If I could remember, man, Jesus I'd tell you, I honestly would."
Counsel for Dunne's: "The manager will say the cut was very clean cut."
O'Shea: "How do I know what it was like, OK. Is the manager a doctor, man?"
Counsel: "The manager will say the wound was not fresh as the blood was dried."
O'Shea: "I wiped the blood off myself. There was curry all over my shoes and jeans. I took my jeans off". . . ladies and the impressionable young will now avert their eyes, but may proceed with the rest of this column by braille only. . ."and said I'd keep them and put them away for the court, but I can't find them, with moving around. If I got a chance I'd find them."
No doubt he would, but I for one would be rather grateful if he didn't; and I suspect that Dunnes stores might feel a comparable gratitude if the unfortunate Mr O'Shea were to take his accident-prone patronage - and indeed his jeans if he ever finds them - very much elsewhere. For mishaps befall him quite out of the blue. For example, John Fitzgerald, a hygiene assistant, told the court he had checked the Dunnes floor at 12 o'clock and found no spillage.
Jar of curry
But lo, minutes later, there was poor Joe O'Shea, stricken in that very place so recently clear of hazard. And dear me, not content with waylaying its victim in an area where it lived, in a classic example of guerrilla tactics of which Che Guevera would have been proud, the offending jar of curry performed its attack some distance from the curry home base. Moreover, as the manager Joe Hennessey testified, "There was not a lot of blood, no running blood, the blood was dry as if he had cut himself a few hours before. There was only one patch of blood on his pants. Where it was cut it was clean."
Ah. The curry stain did not coincide with the cut caused by the broken glass - proof, yet again, of the ingeniousness with which fate sandbags this unhappy creature at every turn. Let us rejoice at the court award last month of £750 damages which might soften the blow of his injuries, not to speak of the fate which befell his poor unfortunate jeans, for which no words readily come to mind.
And rejoice also that, despite all, Mr O'Shea is of such sound mind, for he has been pursued by a litany of mishaps that would bring a small, faint smile of recognition to Job's long-suffering face. On February 1995, he - Joe, not Job - fell over a stopcock in Shanakill and sued the UDC. Counsel put it to him that he fell again in Rock Street, and again sued the UDC, but on this occasion amnesia, no doubt occasioned by trauma, intervened, for the plaintiff replied: "I don't remember."
In November 1997, he suffered a neck injury in a car crash. "Neck injury yes, it wasn't sorted out properly. I lost my eyesight in that three-car pile up and I'm blind in that eye, my retina was injured."
Manhole cover
Which might explain why the following August he tripped over a manhole cover in Shanakill. And why, 15 days later, he tripped over another stopcock in Casement's Avenue, and sued the UDC. And why, the following February, he tripped over a cover and injured his thumb. And why, the following month, he fell on a broken pavement in Stack's Villas and reinjured that selfsame thumb: oh misfortunate digit!
Counsel. "You're accident prone?"
O'Shea. "If I had no accident, man, I wouldn't be here, for God's sake."
Mr O'Shea described the £750 award as a joke - and I for one agree with him - and said he would appeal. I sincerely hope he does, and that justice continues to attend this most unusual person.