A 49-year old drowning victim was “highly intoxicated” when ‘belly-flopping’ into a lake outside Ennis to cool off for a swim during a hot day here last August.
At the Clare Coroner’s Court in Ennis, County Coroner, Isobel O’Dea said that a post mortem on Samir Kaul of Kilrush Rd, Ennis detected “highly toxic” levels of alcohol in his system.
Ms O’Dea told the inquest that it was a very warm day and stated that the way Mr Kaul jumped into the water, “which was more of a belly flop rather than a dive probably contributed to him not being able to re-surface”.
Ms O’Dea said that Mr Kaul died as a result of drowning at Ballyalla Lake outside Ennis on August 13th last “but he was highly intoxicated when he went into the water”.
Ms O’Dea said that it was an unusually hot period of weather here and water in the lake would have been extremely cold – even in the Summer.
Ms O’Dea said that Mr Kaul died of asphyxia due to drowning with the stated level of ethanol in his system which she said “would have been way over the limit to be driving”.
The post mortem found that there was no injury to Mr Kaul’s head.
Siobhan O’Connor was present at the lakeside and saw Mr Kaul enter the water from the ‘old pier’ at the lake.
Ms O’Connor lived near Mr Kaul on Ennis’s Kilrush Rd and knew him for about two years.
In her deposition, Ms O’Connor said: “It was a very warm day and I remember at the time Samir saying he was feeling very warm. There were lots of young people swimming in the water and diving into the water.”
She said that “Samir said to me at 5.40pm to mind his belongings and he was going to cool off in the water. I saw him walk up onto the pier and jump into the water”.
She said: “About two minutes later, I was wondering where Samir had gone because he had not come back to where I was. I said to people jumping into the water ‘did they see Samir?’ and they started looking for him.”
The area where Mr Kaul entered the water is not a designated swim spot covered by lifeguards as it 500 metres distant and obstructed from view by hedges, reeds and trees
from the lake swim zone where the lifeguards for the lake patrol.
One of two lifeguards on duty, Emer O’Loughlin said in a deposition said that she received a call from the Coastguard at 6pm that two very distressed friends at the old pier said that they hadn’t seen their friend for some time after he went into the water.
Ms O’Loughlin said that when she arrived at the scene, she met with two very distressed women and she was told Mr Kaul hadn’t surfaced for 20 minutes “after people saw a man belly flop off the pier and hadn’t seen him since”.
Ms O’Loughlin went into the water to search for Mr Kaul and two to three metres from the pier found a body submerged in the murky shallow waters.
Ms O’Loughlin said that she pulled Mr Kaul out of the water and with the help of another person there dragged Mr Kaul onto the pier.
Ms O’Loughlin said that she tried to revive Mr Kaul with the use of a defibrillator for five to ten minutes before Gardai took over.
Mr Kaul – who was due to celebrate his 50th birthday last October – was pronounced dead at 19.17pm at the lakeside.
