A DAD-of-three who was camping with his family on Cape Clear tragically fell onto rocks while trying to retrieve a football, an inquest at Clonakilty District Court heard last week.
David Latten (44) of Templebryan South, Clonakilty – the son-in-law of former Cork South West TD Jim O’Keeffe – was camping with his wife Neasa and their three sons – Ruadhán (9), Odhran (7) and Finn (5) at the Chléire Haven campsite on July 1st last year.
Neasa O’Keeffe’s statement was read out at the inquest. She said they were on a weekend away at the time and David had been playing football with their son Finn down the field from where they were camping when the ball went over a fence and down some cliffs.
‘I was charging my phone in the communal yurt and he came back up and then headed down the road to retrieve the ball. That was the last time I saw him,’ she said. ‘We had plans to have pizza later on, down at the pier. We waited for him at the tents but he never came back up. I thought he might have gone ahead of us but when we walked down he wasn’t there either.’
She thought they must have missed him and walked back up the campsite but there was still no sign of him. She met with campsite manager Finbarr Hennessey and they went for a spin around to look for him. They spoke to people at the beach, too, to see if they had come across David, but no one had seen him and they also checked the three pubs on the island.
Neasa became really alarmed and rang gardaí and emergency services. Both the Coast Guard and Baltimore RNLI began a search for him.
In a statement read out at the inquest, search and rescue volunteer John Kearney said he was on the north harbour when he was informed that a man was missing. He said he began a search of the south harbour at around 8.10pm and about 150m into an inlet he found a man’s body face down in the water. He informed the lifeboat crew who then recovered the body and returned it to the shore and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy carried out by Dr Abdel Sadek at Cork University Hospital indicated that he had fallen on his left side on the rocks, suffered a laceration to the left side of his head. Dr Sadek’s report concluded that he died as a result of a traumatic head injury complicated by bleeding from his left kidney.
Mr Latten’s father-in-law Jim O’Keeffe thanked all those in the emergency services who helped in the search and he said the support the family has received since the accident is very much appreciated.
Mr O’Connell returned a verdict of accidental death and offered his deepest sympathies to Ms O’Keeffe and her family. He said it was a very unlucky occurrence with fatal consequences.
