A young man plunged to his death from a fire escape
used as a smoking area at a club in Dundalk, Ireland. An inquest heard how 20 year old
Eamonn Mulvenna was smoking a cigarette when he fell backwards plunging 27 feet to his
death.
A night out ended in tragedy for Eamonn Mulvenna
when he went for a cigarette on a fire escape used as a smoking area by the club he was
attending. According to a witness, Eamonn was sitting on the railing of the balcony,
smoking a cigarette and viewing the Dundalk skyline when he fell backwards to his death.
The shocked witness who was on a stag party at the lap dance club told a coroner's inquest
how Eamonn had suddenly slipped backwards while describing the skyline "It happened
very quickly. I couldn't believe what I'd just seen."
At the Coroner's Court it emerged that the club kept the
fire door open so that patrons wanting to have a smoke could use the fire escape balcony.
Under smoking ban legislation the fire escape balcony was the only facility on the
premises available for smokers. The distraught mother of the deceased said "she
wouldn't let a dog onto the balcony never mind a person"
It appears that smoking areas such as fire escape balconies
and other possible hazardous areas do not come under the remit of of health and safety
authorities who according to an inquest had 'no function' in relation to the death of
Eamonn Mulvenna.
